


Come Back To You One By One

by Snapjack



Series: The Honor System [3]
Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom, X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Captivity, Internalized Homophobia, Mentions of hate groups, Multi, One reference to a date-rape drug in a non-rape context, One tasteless prison joke from Nick Fury, References to anti-Semitism, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-11
Updated: 2015-03-07
Packaged: 2018-01-08 09:27:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 75,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1130961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snapjack/pseuds/Snapjack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m going to be moving into a, for lack of a better word, commune with a bunch of superheroes. I’m going to be selling my home in D.C. and moving all my belongings to Stark Tower in New York. You’ve probably seen it on TV being attacked by aliens. I’m going to be changing my will so that one of my coworkers, a former supervisee who is now my, for lack of a better word, boyfriend, gets durable power of attorney and all my stuff if I die. I also need to make sure his, for lack of a better word, assassin ex-girlfriend is well-taken–care-of in the event of my death. I might die,” Phil adds, probably (upon reflection) unnecessarily.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this work is taken from The Mountain Goats' song "Love Love Love". Additionally, I've drawn upon a few trace elements of MAoS and discarded others--in this version, the Avengers are just beginning to live together in Avengers Tower when Phil returns from a (real) hospital stay in Tahiti.

 

 

_“It is good to put your life in other people’s hands.”_

_\--T.H. White, The Once and Future King_

 

 

# Chapter 1

 

Clint shows up on Phil’s doorstep with Natasha in hand. Literally. He’s got bags slung over his shoulders and across his chest, he’s bristling with bow cases, and he is hauling his ex along both-armed like a college student carrying a duffel of laundry.

“This is my partner,” he says when Phil opens the door. Clint’s eyes are wild. “Got that? _My. Partner._ Where she goes, I go. Got that? We come as a package or we don’t go at all. Sir.”

Phil looks at Natasha. She glares up at him furiously from under disheveled hair, her expression clearly reading **_fix this_**. Phil jams his expression as far into neutral as it will go.

“All right,” he says, stepping back. Clint marches Natasha up the stairs and deposits her inside the apartment, darts back outside, checks his quadrants from the door, pulls himself up on the brickwork to check the camera mounted on the roofline, peers into the bushes on either side of the stoop—all this gives Phil just enough time to furiously and silently glare a _how long has he been like this_ look at Natasha and for her to glare back _ever since you came back from the dead, asshole_ , and then they have to revert to neutral because Clint is back inside, locking doors and dropping bags and closing curtains, a whirlwind of purposeful, paranoid activity. Phil and Natasha stand, hands in plain sight, radiating neutrality, letting Clint run circles around them, using every moment his back is turned to emote some variant of _what the FUCK_ at each other. Phil wants to ask Natasha how long it’s been since Clint got some sleep. He wants to ask her if Clint’s been eating regularly. He wants to ask her if Clint’s seen any grief counselors, and if they’ve prescribed some basic medication, and if not, _why not_. Most of all, he wants to ask her how the hell she’s let Clint get this far down the rabbit hole, but he can’t think of a way to phrase the question that won’t result in his disembowelment, so he stands and radiates calm and neutrality a little more.

 

When Clint finally rattles to a halt in the living room, Phil says, carefully, “Are either of you hungry?”

Neither of them offer an answer, but Clint perks right up, and Phil hasn’t been studying Natasha’s microexpressions for six years for nothing; they’re both clearly starving. “Right,” he says, turning towards the kitchen and rolling up his sleeves. “I’ll get something going.” Natasha wordlessly follows, her glare palpable between Phil’s shoulder blades; Clint picks a chair near the door, where he can monitor the tiny backyard out the window. Phil pulls out meatloaf, ketchup, mustard, lettuce, bread. “Hot or cold meatloaf sandwich?” he asks Natasha, who shrugs. Phil looks at Clint, who has suddenly developed an advanced interest in the popcorn ceiling. Lovely. Phil’s always wanted a pair of teenagers. Hot it is. He moves to the stove, turns a burner on, drizzles oil and places three thick slabs of meatloaf in a pan. Waits. It begins to rain outside and the pounding hush, coupled with the soft sizzle of the pan, wraps their little tableaux in a dense curtain of warm white noise. Phil feels like he’s in a painting by Edward Hopper, like his lit kitchen is the warm bright center of a world of darkness. The Night Kitchen, With Two Stone-Cold Assassins And Their Recently Resurrected Handler. He flips the meatloaf slices, searing both sides, slides them onto bread, gives Natasha and Clint the go-ahead to doctor their sandwiches. They both steer clear of the mustard and have a brief, undignified race to the ketchup bottle. Clint wins and Natasha promptly pretends she couldn’t care less. Phil stuffs his face with sandwich to avoid laughing. Partly because keeping a straight face is a paramount Coulson family value, and partly because he’s put them through hell. He’s got no right to laugh at anything right now, not while they’re both wound so tight. Not until he’s fixed… whatever this is. He swallows.

“There’s a pull-out couch for tonight,” he says. “I hope that’s okay. I never bothered putting a bed in the guest bedroom. I’ll buy one tomorrow. Two, if necessary.” They both look at him, their faces unreadable. Both their cheeks bulging with meatloaf sandwich.

 

Three weeks earlier, Phil had woken up in a hospital room in Tahiti, sure he’d never see either of their faces again. Unfortunately, there was no one around to confirm or deny that suspicion. That’s the undramatic thing about being in a coma—unless you happen to wake up when the janitor’s swabbing the floor or the nurse is changing an IV, odds are no one’s going to notice when you come out of it. Phil lay there for a while, that first night, drifting in and out of consciousness, listening to the beep of his own heart monitor and the slow churning of his respirator, and the only thought he could really muster from his drugged haze was: Well. This is awkward.

 

For the next few days, Phil drifted in and out of a murky layer of consciousness that oozed along like sludge beneath fresh river water. Sometimes he heard voices but couldn’t rouse himself enough to open his eyes and participate. Sometimes he even recognized them: Thor and Captain Rogers conversing quietly, Dr. Banner playing along with Jeopardy on the TV. Once, in the middle of the night, he had a strong impression that Tony Stark was there, watching him, his expression unreadable, but then it was morning again and there was nothing but a folded newspaper in the chair where he thought Stark was. He was sure that Pepper came; she brought a vase of white flowers and talked to him for hours, but he was like a VCR set to erase and he couldn’t follow the ribbon of a conversation no matter how slowly it spooled past.

 

The next time Phil really woke up, a nurse was adjusting his chart—she noticed his eyes were open and scooted out of the room like her ass was on fire, arms waving for balance as she staggered around the corner like a cartoon character. He wanted to tell her, go ahead, sister. I’ll be here waiting when you get back.

 

Of course, with the ironic timing Phil had come to expect from hospitalizations, he lost consciousness again by the time she returned with a team of doctors, so they had to prod him awake. He was bleary and the pain medication wasn’t so much erasing the pain as smearing it around like a bug on a windshield, but he got it when they told him he’d been out for eight weeks. He wanted to ask a lot of things; most desperately he wanted to know how Clint died, how badly the Helicarrier crashed, if everyone he knew was dead, but the steady tug of medication was like a riptide, and it pulled him under again before he could figure out how to ask for a pencil and paper to write it all down.

 

When he woke up the third time, it was like clearing the surface of the water after freeing himself from a sinking ship; an ugly tear of adrenaline ripped through his system and he strained up from the bed, and his respirator threw a conniption and all kinds of alarms were going off, and Nick Fury was there looming over him, holding him by the shoulders, saying, “Hey there, hey there, I gotcha, everything’s all right,” and Phil grabbed him by the coat and yanked as hard as he could, and the four separate needles in the back of Phil’s hand twisted savagely, and his chest was full of battery acid and he was about to pass out again and he pulled Fury down and willed him to understand the furious question in his glare.

“Easy there,” said Fury, “I mean it, _everything_ is all right, man. Your team is alive, all of ‘em. Barton too. Romanov performed a cognitive recalibration.”

Phil blinked at Fury.

“She hit him really hard in the head,” Fury clarified.

Phil willed Fury to tell him where Barton is where they put him _where is he_ **_where is he_** goddamnit, but his psychic luck had apparently run out, because Fury was sitting, smoothing out the wrinkles in his coat and answering a question Phil hadn’t thought to ask yet. “Loki’s off-planet. Thor took him back to Asgard to face their equivalent of the Hague, though if you ask me that’s too good for him. And New York is all right.”

Phil frowned. He was, at that point, unclear on what New York had to do with anything, and he could give a shit about Loki. He was still hung up on Barton being alive, and he couldn’t make Fury understand that he needed to know if Barton was uninjured, if he was in SHIELD custody—the thought of a court-martial and a firing squad for Barton sent Phil’s pulse skyrocketing, and that set off more alarms from the machines near his bed, and a nurse came in, and he was down for the count again.  For the next three days, they barely let him out from under heavy sedation. (At one point he could’ve sworn that Clint was there. But Clint didn’t say anything, just stared, and so maybe it wasn’t real after all.)

 

He is told later that he ripped three stitches out of his chest wall trying to hang onto Fury’s coat as the drugs took him under.

 

“Boss,” Natasha says quietly, and it brings him back to his kitchen. It’s late and he’s starting to feel the wear of the day tugging around the new seams in his back and his chest.

“Sorry,” he says, and some of his exhaustion must show on his face, because some internal switch is triggered in Romanov, her I-am-so-mad-at-you face replaced by her this-is-me-caring-for-you face. The faces aren’t that different.

“Come on,” she says, sliding from her stool and clearing his plate away. “Let’s all get some sleep.”

“Sounds good,” admits Phil. He’s steered gently towards the stairs by Romanov, who then silently disappears to stash weapons in the sofa cushions or cover the windows with aluminum foil or buy frightening lingerie on the Internet or whatever the hell Natasha does when left to her own devices. He’s left standing awkwardly on the stairs looking at Clint, who’s looking lost in the living room. It’s the first time they’ve been truly alone together since before Loki, unless the brief interlude Phil vaguely remembers from his hospitalization was real.

“So, this is strange,” he says, because in cases like these, honesty is usually the right wire to clip.

Clint chuckles, quietly, almost to himself. “You can say that again.”

“Barton,” Phil says, before stopping himself. The thing he wants to say, he hasn’t earned the right to say just yet. But Clint’s looking at him now, expecting a response, so he says, “Linen closet’s down the hall on the left.” Barton just looks at him, that steady grey gaze that catches everything, especially things that try to hide from it.  Phil stands on the stairs, gripping the railing, keeping his eyes locked on Barton’s, trying not to hide. Trying to let Barton read as much as he wants. But now Clint has apparently read his fill, because his gaze abruptly snaps off Phil and focuses down the hallway. “Well,” he says. “I gotta get some rack time. Night, boss.” And walks off without a backward glance.

 

That night, it rains. Phil lies on his back, the only way he’s comfortable any more, watching orange-black rivulets of water trickle down the skylight. Somewhere far overhead, he knows, the Helicarrier is idling, a silent and invisible guardian for the city. It’s possible some of the rain currently dripping on his house slid over her gunwhales and down her hull. Then again, she could be way over on the other side of the city right now, tethered by GPS coordinates to the Pentagon or the naval yards or the White House. It’s impossible to say. He has lost all sense of place.

 

Downstairs, on Coulson’s pull-out couch, Clint lies on his stomach, the only way he’s comfortable anymore since Loki touched his chest and pulled _him_ out.

“I guess… I just couldn’t ever believe he was gone,” he says to Tasha, who is sitting next to him, stroking his hair. “And now that he’s back… I just can’t.”

“You’re afraid,” says Natasha. Good old Tasha. Never one to mince words. “What of?”

“I dunno. I guess like. Maybe I did something wrong, uh. Before. I think it was like, God kinda giving me a warning shot. And so, if I touch him again, you know, _like that_ , God’ll really kill him.”

Natasha is Russian, so she understands about Clint’s God being an asshole, even though he thinks she’s technically supposed to be an atheist or something. Whatever. Tonight, she’s not playing along. “Do you think God works like that?” she says, and Clint shrugs.

“I dunno. He never seemed to like me very much.”

Natasha pets his hair again, which is starting to become annoying. “Self-pity isn’t a good look on you, Barton.”

Oh, **fuck** her. Clint flinches away from Tasha’s hand. “ ** _What,_** it’s true. Orphan. Abandoned. Fucked over a million ways—Tasha, you _know_ this is true. More than anyone else you know how fucked-up I am.”

“More than anyone else I know how strong you’ve had to be,” says Tasha. “But I don’t think that means God has it out for you. I think maybe it’s his way of paying you a compliment.”

“What, like I can _handle_ all this shit?”

“Something like that.”

“Well, I **_can’_** _t_. I can’t even talk to him, Tasha. You saw me tonight. I just. Froze.”

“You were frightened. But you’re here,” says Natasha, “and you’re trying. You’ll try again until you get it right.”

“Mmmph,” grumbles Clint, eyes closed. Nothing he can say to that.

“Big pussycat,” Natasha calls him, her hand returning to his hair, and he grunts but lets her stroke him. “You keep forgetting, I _know_ you. You’re a stubborn bastard and so is Coulson. He’s not going to let you avoid this forever.”

Clint chuckles at this, softly. “Yeah, he uh, didn’t last time.”

“Yeah, you never told me about that,” says Natasha. “You’re going to have to, one of these days. I’ll admit I’m curious.”

Clint shrugs. “Ask me what you wanna know.”

“Who made the first move?”

“I did,” says Clint, and Natasha smacks him delightedly on the shoulder. “See! What’d I tell you.”

“Well, he said the first thing. But I kissed him first.”

“That counts as the first move. So tell me, is he good at kissing?” Natasha cups her chin in her hands in a parody of girlishness and Clint wants to **_die_** laughing, but he wants to talk about Phil more, so he plays along. “He’s _dreamy_ ,” he tells her, batting his eyelashes.

Natasha smiles indulgently into the darkness, and Clint wonders how it is that he knows her so well that he can tell exactly what kind of smile it is just from the tiny sound of her lips unsticking from her gums. He shifts around, gets a little more comfortable (and man, it’s so easy in this house, Coulson keeps it toasty warm and the couch bed is more like a couch _womb_ , Clint has slept on real mattresses in hotels that weren’t this cozy).

“It was like… really hot?” he says quietly. “An’ I mean, I guess that shouldn’t have been a surprise, but it kinda was. I mean, I knew what you’d been tellin’ me had some truth to it, I knew I wasn’t a hunnert percent straight, but I thought it was gonna be weirder, yanno? Take some more getting used to.” He notices that, without thinking about it, he’s wriggled around and is now lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. He wonders if they’re below Coulson’s bedroom.

“It sounds nice,” volunteers Tasha.

“Yeah,” whispers Clint, watching the swirling patterns made by car headlights shining through rainy windows on the ceiling. “It was.”

 

When Phil wakes up, his two houseguests have made themselves scarce. He makes a larger pot of coffee than he needs, makes more noise than usual while getting dressed, tries not to check his neighbors’ rooftops as he leaves for PT. Spends all day in a foul mood, snaps at the new PT guy when he pulls too hard on the knee Phil hasn’t told him is weaker, comes home in an even blacker mood. The city is dazzlingly wet, soaked in spring rain, rhododendron blossoms spattered all over the asphalt. Interns and Georgetown sorority girls are out in droves, a sea of Easter egg colors. He hates every single one of them indiscriminately, hates them for being young, hates them for being healthy, hates them for being ignorant of the _invisible goddamn aircraft carrier hanging right above their goddamn heads,_ is aware that it’s unfair to feel this way and just _does not care_ , right up until the point that he slams the front door open and catches Natasha in the act of setting the dinner table. From the kitchen, Clint yells, “Is he home already?” Natasha’s eyes are wide, startled, and Phil catches the door in the act of rebounding off the wall, fumbles his keys.

“Hi, guys,” he says, trying to sound like he always comes home to two stone-cold assassins serving up a home-cooked meal. It falls miserably short of casual, and he can feel his face heating up. Natasha’s face darkens and she stalks away, looking strangely like his mother used to after getting off the phone with her mother-in-law. He hasn’t thought about his grandmother in years, God rest her, and while it would have chilled Eileen Coulson to her Red-hating core to know that her grandson was comparing her to an ex-Soviet assassin-for-hire, that’s just tough. These are Phil’s friends, and if his dead grandmother can’t believe it, well, she can just get in line.

 

He goes into the kitchen, rolling up his sleeves, determined to be helpful, and is met by an explosive squawk from Clint, who flies at him like a pioneer housewife and literally shoos him out the door with a dishtowel. “Get out getout _getout_!!!” The door slams, and Phil is left blinking and confused in the hallway. There is a faint aroma of smoke.

“It’s not ready yet!” hollers Clint from the other side of the door, and Natasha slides behind Phil like a shadow, muttering, “Toldja you shouldn’t’ve gone in there.”

Phil is about to protest that she told him no such thing, but then his self-preservation instincts kick in and he remembers that a smug Natasha is better than a sulking Natasha, and besides, now maybe he can get a minute alone with her to talk Clint. He follows her down the hallway and into the small office he never uses.

“Close the door,” Natasha says smoothly, and Phil complies. Then he turns back into her slap, sudden and stinging, right across the face. His head snaps to the side, and his eyes water, but he doesn’t let himself cringe or cower. He’s had this coming for a while. She assesses his response, takes his face in both her hands. Her eyes are full of tears and her lips are trembling, and it’s only the second time he’s ever seen Natasha cry, but he failed her the first time and he’ll be damned if he does a second.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, and folds her in his arms, and she is huddling into him, sobbing, horrible silent racking convulsions that lock her body into a claw shape. Her mouth is distended and there’s a long clear thread of tears and mucus depending from her upper lip, and he holds her and braces against the door, stroking her back, murmuring soothing noises into her hair. The heat register kicks on and there’s a thunk and a whistle through the house, and the little office warms as Clint bangs and swears in the kitchen, the slim line of yellow under the door the only light. Natasha’s sobs slowly ebb, and her back softens under the circles Phil’s rubbing, and she draws in the deep and ragged breath that signals the end of crying in every culture. He releases her, gently, and as she reassembles herself, Phil remembers a fact he once heard about babies raised in orphanages. They do not, as a rule, cry. Ever. They learn, very early on, that crying garners no reward of attention or comfort, and the behavior is soon extinguished. He wonders who taught Natasha to cry. He suspects it’s the assassin in his kitchen.

As if on cue, a tremendous clatter of tumbling pans, followed by a hollered “SONofaBITCH!!” breaks the atmosphere, and Natasha and Phil share a stunned moment of eye contact before collapsing into giggles. Holding onto each other for support, both of them gasping for breath, Clint’s cries from the kitchen (“Aw, come on, guys! I can hear you, you know! It’s not funny!!”) only push them further into helpless gales of laughter. Phil’s chest hurts, his eyes are watering, his house is full of smoke and possibly a grease fire, and he’s got a hysterical assassin leaning right into his solar plexus. He feels pretty good about it.

 

Dinner that night is pizza; Clint pouts a little after the vulcanized remains of his attempted casserole are thrown in the trash, but perks right up when Phil and Natasha let him choose the toppings. Again, they eat standing up in the kitchen, leaning against the countertops, not ten feet away from a perfectly serviceable dining room with a set table and everything—not making a big point out of not using it but not using it all the same. Phil can already tell this eating-in-the-kitchen business is going to be a thing. He likes it better—it feels more intimate, safer somehow—than facing his teammates across a big wooden tabletop. Next time he sees Fury, he must remember to suggest getting rid of the Helicarrier’s massive conference table. It can’t be doing the larger team any good. He lifts a fresh piece of pizza from the box, and Clint leans way over to survey the remaining pieces. He’s clearly trying to select for maximal black olives, so Phil holds the lid open so Clint can count, which as he counts he’s leaning farther out over the box, almost overbalancing himself. Phil steals a glance at Natasha. She’s stopped chewing to watch. Clint apparently makes an internal decision and reaches for his Chosen Slice, and Phil drops the lid on him as he’s lifting it out of the box. It scrapes a couple of black olives off. Clint gives Phil a wounded look. Natasha smirks.

“So,” says Phil, chewing merrily, “What shall we do tomorrow, children?”

“I don’t know, Nanny Jo,” Natasha says, having caught on to Phil’s strategy (act like everything’s copacetic and wait for Clint to snap back into place). “Shoot bad guys in the face?”

Clint stills and looks at the piece of pizza in his hand like it’s turned on him. Sets it down, slides himself off the counter, and stalks out of the room. Natasha looks at Phil, eyebrows raised. “Got any more bright ideas?”

 

The next day, Phil tries asking Clint for help with the crossword puzzle, thinking, neutral topic.

“Eight letters for a Middle Eastern snack?”

Clint’s face darkens to a frightening degree. “Shawarma,” he says. Then he’s gone. 

Phil writes it in. One word. Progress.

 

“You got to get this fixed, Cheese. We need you back on base. All of you.”

“I understand, sir,” says Phil, who has walked to the corner store at eleven o’clock at night just to make this call, one of his twice-weekly check-ins with Fury that are the sole condition of Strike Team Delta’s furlough. “It’s going to take time.”

“Time’s what I ain’t got,” says Fury, sounding weary and almost apologetic. “We got fifteen rookie agents in the New York branch that need an experienced trainer, we got a public relations _nightmare_ on our hands, we got a buncha computer nerds crawling up our asses call themselves the Rising Tide, and our lawyers are telling me we _alone_ carry the civil liability for destroying half of Manhattan. Manhattan is _expensive_ , Phil.” Well. Not really all that apologetic. “Now I got Thor commuting between here and Asgard, so he can’t show up for every dog-and-pony show the fucking PR people tell me we gotta have. That’s a lot of ribbons ain’t getting cut. We can’t use Banner because every time CNN reruns that goddamn clip of him smashing up the BQE, our lawyers tack another million onto a projected verdict that is already going to make all of us homeless and have us auctioning off your necktie collection for spare change under the Cross Bronx Expressway.” Not apologetic at all, in fact, as it turns out. “Stark won’t come off the goddamn bench because he’s still having goddamn night sweats about the world blowing up, which I know because his goddamn therapist is sending _me_ the goddamn bills. Therapy is _expensive_ , Phil.”

Phil offers no comment.

“That leaves me with Cap. Now, Cap’s awful nice. Smiles, shakes hands, kisses babies. But last week he ran into Rachel Maddow outside the Senate Armed Services Committee. Wanna guess what he called her?”

_No._ Phil freezes in the middle of the convenience store, carefully schools his expression.  Keeping a straight face is a paramount Coulson family value. “Sir?”

“Precisely. Called her that three times before an aide managed to clue him in.”

Phil closes his eyes.

“Now, Rachel’s real cool, so it didn’t go anywhere. But we need to do some serious catching-up with Cap, and twenty minutes a day between press conferences just ain’t cutting it. I can _not_ sit around wondering when the next shoe is gonna drop. I need you here for this, Phil. Barton needs to go kiss some babies, Romanov needs to take over the Leno circuit, and you gotta go make sure Rogers doesn’t think the Negro Leagues are still a thing.”

For a moment Phil knows true terror. “He _wouldn’t_ —”

Fury chuckles, a sound like a crocodile with hiccups. “Naw, I got out ahead of that one while you were out in Tahiti. You’re welcome.”

Phil wonders, idly, if a heart attack would be a pleasant way to die. “You’re an asshole, sir.”

“Yeah, what was that you said about that? Assholes work best in the company of other assholes. It’s why we’ve been friends for so long.”

 

The next day, when Phil’s getting about ready to ask Barton what he wants for dinner, Natasha stops him with a hand on his forearm. “Wait, let me get this,” she says, and hollers at the back of Clint’s head: “ _Idiot ! Vash zhalkiy paren' khochet znat', chego ty khochesh' na uzhin, i kogda vy planiruyete razgovarivat' s nim!_ ”

Clint, who is sprawled on the living room sofa watching Lewis Hamilton disappoint a very large crowd, looks over his shoulder at Phil and Natasha standing in the doorway. Thinks about it. Then, in a small voice: “Can we get corn dogs?”

 

They end up walking down the Mall in the soft evening light, enjoying the warm spring air. Clint has found his corn dog and is happily alternating between bites from it and from the massive thundercloud of pink cotton candy that Natasha has bought. She walks between them, tearing off tufts of insulation-like candy and passing them to Phil and Clint by turns, one for every bite she takes. She’s very fair.

“Lookit that,” she says, nodding ahead of them to a particularly majestic box kite that hangs high and nearly motionless in the air. “Doesn’t it remind you of Tehran?”

“Nope,” says Clint. “That was Istanbul where we saw the kite contest.”

“Is not,” says Natasha. “Those were hot air balloons.”

“Telling you. Kites.”

Phil walks along beside them as they bicker, smiling. He knows it was Peshawar, but he likes listening to them figure it out. Besides, Natasha doesn’t push memory buttons by accident. There was a reason she brought up the kites, and even if Phil doesn’t get to know all the details, he trusts that it’s for the best. He also understands more Russian than Natasha thinks he does. 

 

_2007, Peshawar._

 

“Tasha? You know what this place needs?”

“Enlighten me,” says Natasha, who is scanning traffic in the jammed opposing lane of the Grand Trunk. Somewhere, in one of those crawling Chevy Suburbans, an upper-level general of the Ten Rings and a mid-level accountant for Al Qaeda are having a conversation that can’t be picked up by conventional audio surveillance. That’s because they’re having it telepathically, and the Suburban is actually a heavily armored safe-cell designed to shield its passengers from Cerebro’s global view. Strike Team Delta’s job is to identify the disguised Suburban and tag it with an RFID chip that will serve as a homing beacon for guided missiles once the vehicle is safely outside city limits. If the two telepathic terrorists are inside it when it’s struck, bonus. 

“This place needs air conditioning. I’m serious here. Think how much less everyone would wanna blow each other up if they weren’t fuckin’ sweating all the time.”

“As always, Barton, your scintillating analysis of other cultures leaves nothing to be desired except radio silence,” says Phil, who is inching through this traffic jam for the third time this morning. It’s been frustrating.

“Whatever. I’m waiting around here in nine-hundred degree heat to drop a pigeon turd on top of Barbie’s Dream Convertible. Give me something better to do and I’ll do it.”

“Yesh’ menya,” Natasha mutters, and the comm is briefly alive with Barton’s rough, jackal-like laugh.

“Any time, darlin’,” he says, and Phil’s brain briefly shorts out around the word, and then Natasha spots the Suburban that’s riding a little lower to the ground than any of the others, and calls it, and by the time Barton’s two roofs over and getting ready to drop the pigeon turd (it’s not just a codename; his arrow for this task is more like a dart, with a payload of chemical epoxy that dissolves into a sticky mess on whatever surface it lands on), Phil’s already forgotten that he meant to look up what _yesh’ menya_ means.

 

High up, leaning over the edge of a particularly ugly hotel roof, Clint is occupied with the fiddly task of cracking open the tiny plastic caplet that will activate the chain reaction and cause the entire dart to dissolve into fake-bird-scat within the next thirty seconds, and, wouldn’t you know it, now’s the time the traffic jam starts to loosen. Natasha’s in his ear and also up his ass: “Barton. You’re gonna lose visibility in the next ten seconds.”

“I know, I know,” gripes Clint. He’s got epoxy on his fingers now, and damned if he’s going to get that shit on Betty Lou (he’s going through a Seger phase when it comes to naming his bows, and these days Betty Lou’s getting out _every_ night, because he and Tasha are going through a bit of a dry spell, and when he can’t fuck he always heads for the range. His aim’s _terrific_ right now.)

“Barton,” Tasha says, a warning note developing, and _damn_ that woman knows just how to light him up when he’s struggling with adhesives.

“ _Yes_ , dear?” he says, an exaggerated note of how-may-I-help-you in his voice, and then lets out a silent stream of expletives, because now he’s glued his finger to his earpiece. The Suburban’s almost out of sight, heading around the curve near Toyota Frontier Motors, and _fuck_ , now here’s Coulson on the line.

“Barton, if you’d like to stay in Peshawar another day I’m sure that can be arranged.”

“Not gonna be necessary, sir,” says Clint, pulling in a deep breath and drawing. The seconds become elastic, stretching out until he can fit an eternity of thought into each one, hear his pulse hammering in and out of the tiny spaces in his ears like the tide churning away at a pocket of rock. He is barely conscious of the string’s release; the energy travels out his arm as he makes a thousand tiny adjustments, focusing and funneling that arrow down the tunnel he’s made for it in space, sending it down the wormhole he’s made in time, all the other crazy Zen shit he tells himself to make this work, this magic trick he’s taught himself that isn’t really a magic trick at all, it’s the result of thousands upon thousands of hours of practice, of dumb yank-and-thud, yank-and-thud, yank-and-thud. It’s not magic but it looks like it, and that’s the payoff. He, Clint Barton, redneck dropout white trash from fucking nowhere, can do _this,_ and most days, it’s enough. He may not be able to solve the mystery of Natasha’s heart, her strange way of being both the woman he goddamn _adores_ and the one who gets _so far under his skin_ that he wants to smear shit in his hair while whistling Dixie—but he can do _this_. Most days, it’s enough.

 

The dart sails through the buttery afternoon air, passes through the open rectangles of a box kite, and lands on the roof of the Suburban with a soft _thunk_ that’s impossible to hear, but that Clint nonetheless feels, with satisfying certainty, in his shoulder blades and his knuckles and his balls. (A miss, by contrast, itches torturously in all the same places; Clint can no more miss and **not** take a second shot than he can stop halfway through an orgasm. He’s tried to explain this to Nat before, but she’s a wet worker and nothing about her mental framework is the same.) “Comin’ down,” he announces, and swings his case and gear back over the edge of the roof. It’s not strictly kosher to rappel off a hotel in the middle of the day, but they have to take these quiet little interludes when no one’s shooting at them to practice. When he touches down in the side alley, Coulson and Natasha are waiting. Natasha looks annoyed. “Why didn’t you come down the other side of the hotel?”

Clint looks down and realizes that his earpiece is still glued to his index finger. He holds it up, sheepishly, and Natasha heaves a long-suffering sigh. Coulson looks faintly amused, as Coulson always does when they bicker; it’s very deflating. If Clint and Natasha were still just Clint-and-Natasha, the argument would not be occurring at all; they’d be **in** the hotel right now, three-quarters undressed, screwed clockwise into each other against a doorjamb. And if this had happened two years ago, when they were still new to SHIELD and to Coulson, they’d be scaling each other right here in the alleyway, daring him to freak out and say something. But Coulson wouldn’t freak, is the thing; he’d just act like they weren’t practically screwing in front of him. Like he was just waiting for them to be done. After a while it just got kind of… embarrassing to keep trying to embarrass a man who couldn’t be. And after that, they just kind of… stopped. Now, if they kiss in front of Coulson, it’s because they actually want to be kissing. And lately, that’s been happening less and less. Clint isn’t really sure what to make of that, but Nat’s always been the boss in some weird, nebulous, undefinable way having to do with, hmm, let him think, oh yeah, the way she could end him with her little finger and is an expert in absolutely _everything_ , and he’s just a dumb jock who shoots things for her and does her bidding, and you know what—Clint applies the brakes on this mindpath, because that way lies only spiraling mindless frustration, and he knows it’s unproductive. When he’s not broiling in his tac vest, he even knows it’s unfair. Natasha catches his eye and he knows he needs to calm down, because she’s right, this isn’t cool, they can’t let Coulson see when they’re like this. He takes two deep breaths and focuses on stowing his gear neatly in the back of the Jeep.

“Tea?”

Clint looks up, and Coulson is just standing there, and the bastard’s got a tray of teas, like a molded cardboard tray with three big plastic takeout cups of tea, and the cups are **sweating** , somehow in the middle of fucking Peshawar in an alley between a dumpster and another dumpster Coulson’s managed to sneak off and find beverages that are cold enough to _sweat_. Clint looks at Tasha. Her I-am-so-annoyed-with-you face has been replaced by her I-am-as-confused-as-you-are face. The two faces aren’t that different. Coulson waggles the tray in Clint’s direction, a little haven’t-got-all-day-here waggle, and Clint takes his tea, marveling at the sound of ice—ice!—grinding around inside the cup. “Thanks,” it occurs to him to say, a few seconds too late to really be polite, but fuck it, he’s too shocked to be smooth.

“No problem,” says Coulson, and now he’s doing the tray-waggle at Tasha, and she’s covering her surprise better than Clint but only just barely, and every second Coulson’s not looking at them they’re emoting some variant of _what the FUCK_ at each other, and now Coulson’s starting up the Jeep and saying, “Come, children. Haven’t got all day,” and Clint’s climbing in the back and fuck if he can even remember what he and Natasha were fighting about.

 

_2013, Washington, D.C._

 

“Hawkeye,” says Phil gently, and Clint comes back to himself on the Mall lawn, purple light gentle around the golden point of the Washington Monument, where he realizes his gaze must have fixated. There’s a _hell_ of a kink in his neck, and Natasha’s way ahead of both him and Coulson, and who knows how long he’s been standing here like an idiot. His real name must not have been working to jog him out of his reverie—“Hawkeye” pretty much only gets busted out when Phil’s worried. But Phil doesn’t look worried, he looks gentle and a little bit sad, like he always does when he has to pull Clint away from a peaceful moment.  His fingers are faintly brushing Clint’s arm, and when he sees Clint noticing, he lets his hand drop.

“We should get going home,” he says in that mild tone that could mean anything. “You’ll both be wanting some real food.”

“Corn dogs are real food,” says Clint. “They’ve got everything a growing assassin needs. Protein, uh, carbs, uh… ”

“A stick?” Phil suggests, his eyes crinkling up.

“Well, of course, sir. Everyone needs their recommended daily value of stick.”

“I see,” says Phil. His gaze hasn’t left Clint’s in about two minutes.

Clint can feel warmth building inside of him, a blush that threatens to light him up like a coal. He needs to get away from this, fast, before he does something dumb. “We should probably get Natasha. She’s only had paper cone, and that’s just the little triangle on the top of the food pyramid.”

“All right,” Phil agrees easily, and swings towards Natasha, leaving Clint feeling vaguely stupid for thinking they’d been having a moment there. He follows along, wondering if it’s all in his head. Seems like there’s an awful lot of that kind of wondering, lately.  

 

Natasha reads her teammates’ gaits as they come towards her and wants to scream with mingled exasperation and love. Coulson is a studied picture of calm. With his shirtsleeves rolled up and tie loosened, he reminds her of a young Sinatra, all insouciance, ambling under lampposts with his hat tilted back and his jacket flung over his shoulder. Natasha can appreciate what Coulson’s trying to do: he’s trying to put Clint at ease, lower the stakes of their strange, haphazard reunion. And the fact that Coulson can telegraph relaxation like this while he’s being trailed by one of the world’s better assassins—while said assassin is in a full-blown snit—well, it’s impressive. Admirable, even. However, because Natasha has known Clint _just a bit longer_ than Coulson has, and also _because she has eyes in her head_ , she can see that Phil’s effort is not working. Clint is trailing like a petulant teenager, his face a thundercloud of inarticulate frustration. The expression is a familiar one. For weeks after they found out Phil was alive—comatose, but alive—Natasha begged Clint to go see him, railed and threatened and even bought him commercial tickets to Tahiti when he wouldn’t get on a SHIELD flight. Nothing budged him. He wouldn’t talk about it, got sullen and silent when she mentioned Coulson, eventually started leaving the room when she came in. Natasha was baffled by Clint’s behavior until the night she caught Dr. Banner eating dry macaroni and cheese in the empty SHIELD cafeteria after having declined three separate team dinner invitations on grounds of lack of appetite. Standing there, watching his back as he quietly ate, Natasha felt like her stomach was turning inside out and then right side out again, like a pillowcase in the dryer. She’d had to clutch at the doorframe for support. When she could stand up again, she’d marched upstairs to Clint’s room, yanked the door open, and screamed right at his head: “CLINTON FRANCIS BARTON, IF YOU DON’T STOP SPANKING YOURSELF I WILL FIX YOUR LITTLE RED WAGON!” (In retrospect, the 1963 Red Room-authored phrasebook might not have been the best source material for American idiom, but when all you have is a hammer…) Anyway, she followed through on her threat, kicked his ass up one side of the Tower and down the other in a full-tilt, no-holds-barred tune-up that pulled the other Avengers out of their quarters to watch. (Rogers started to intervene, but Thor stopped him with an illuminating little anecdote/cubic yard of horseshit about the bonding habits of Asgardian warriors, and then Stark wandered in and popcorn happened.)  They fought up and down the corridors, aware they had an audience and hamming it up just a little for the peanut gallery, who applauded politely every time they passed—Stark had his phone out by the second go-round and was recording the fight for posterity, and Rogers appeared to be holding the bets. Banner even came up to watch (because he avoids stressful situations the same way moths avoid flame), and when Natasha noticed him is when she lost track of the goal and began trying to win in earnest, adding biting and yanking to the mix. Clint, in turn, dropped the fancy capoeira shit that he only did to look cool (Natasha _knows_ him) and began pressing his weight advantage, elbowing Natasha viciously in the breastbone, the radial nerve, the tender spot between shoulderblade and spine. They were tiring, and the punches were adding up; the other Avengers sensed it, and their hoots quieted. Stark even put his phone away. They reached a draw somewhere around minute fifteen, stuck in a mutual headlock, straining against each other as their teammates watched in total silence from the doorway of Rogers’ quarters. The surrender was sudden and mutual, and they collapsed in the hallway, breathing like beached whales. An argument erupted in the peanut gallery over who technically won the bet, and while they ironed that out, Clint nodded at Natasha. “Thanks.”

Natasha, pinching her bloody nose, barely glanced down at him. “Sure, any time.”

“Think I can still get those tickets to Tahiti?”

“They’re in your desk.”

He was gone by morning.

 

As Coulson nears her, his smile takes a quizzical tilt: lost in abstraction, Natasha realizes she must have been staring.

“What?” he says.

“Do you trust me?” she asks, not even trying to hide how hard she’s scanning his face.

“Yes,” says Coulson immediately. He doesn’t even take time to think about it, and that seals it for Natasha; as Clint draws near, she wraps one hand around Coulson’s neck and, making sure that Clint is watching, stands on tiptoe to press her lips softly to Coulson’s—then draws Clint in and kisses him, too. Pulls back, judges reactions: Clint confused, Coulson inscrutable.

“Come on, boys,” she says, operating purely on instinct, a gut-level knowledge that this is the right thing to do. “Let’s go home.”

 

There is something about being followed to bed by one of the world’s better assassins and your recently resurrected handler. Natasha is quite sure she won’t be needing any coffee tonight. She hits Coulson’s townhouse door already rucking her t-shirt up over her ribs; by the time Clint and then Coulson are in the door (Clint getting a faceful of t-shirt), she’s halfway up the stairs, unzipping her jeans as she goes. Get in, get naked, crack their heads together, distribute plenty of orgasms for everybody and then make a quiet exit, leaving them to their reunion: that’s her plan, and she doesn’t see the flaw until Coulson comes into the bedroom. He lets the door swing closed slowly, steps towards them tugging his tie down, and the door’s already snicked shut with a terrible air of finality before Natasha looks up from the bed where she’s tumbled with Clint and realizes— _oh_. _Daddy’s home._ Coulson is looking down at them with that unreadable expression, but underneath it, dark currents are roiling. Natasha glances at Clint, who’s gone over all wobbly. Back up at Coulson. _We’re in trouble now_ , she thinks, and would say so to Clint if she could get her vocal cords to move. She hasn’t been this unnerved by a male gaze since Dr. Banner startled her into blowing cover within five minutes of meeting her. She breathes deep, tries to maintain poise, but her pulse is throbbing in her neck and she cannot tear her eyes from Coulson’s face, where she’s pretty sure she can read a comprehensive catalog of her flaws. She shrinks under that stony gaze; feels like slinking off into the night, into the shadows where she belongs, when Coulson catches her ankle in one hand. His fingers are gentle.

“Here,” he says mildly. “Let me get that.”

And undoes her bootlace. Strips her sock, runs his thumb over her instep. In the blue light of nightfall, his shirt glows unearthly white in the darkened bedroom. Clint reaches across her belly, his hand desert-tan, the pads of his fingers rough as a cat’s tongue. His fingers are trembling. Coulson’s aren’t. She stays still, breathes through her nose, tries to remind herself she’s not trapped even as she wonders if that’s true.  Coulson’s got her other boot in his hands now, is yanking the laces through the grommets with tight, controlled jerks, letting the little plastic ends lash her bare thigh. Clint buries his face in her belly, biting and sucking at her flesh. The sole of her boot is braced against Coulson’s groin, and she can’t tell through the stiff rubber if he’s as achingly hard as she is wet right now. His gaze hasn’t left hers in ages. She tunnels her fingers into Clint’s hair, digs her nails into his scalp.

“He likes it when you tug on his hair,” she tells Coulson.

“I know,” says Coulson, and they smirk at each other over Clint’s head for a moment.

“Way to talk about me like I’m not here, guys,” complains Clint, his credibility somewhat diminished by the ragged moan Natasha drags from him mid-sentence. “Ohhhh…”

“I thought this was your whole point, Barton,” Phil tells him. “She’s your partner. Where she goes, you go. You come as a package or you don’t come at all, was that it?” He smiles at Natasha, and it’s really dark but she swears she sees him _wink_ , and suddenly in a flurry of movement there’s a whole lot more Coulson in the bed, and she’s yanked into a possessive grip that locks all the way around her ribcage. Clint is holding her like a human shield between himself and Phil. His breathing is wild and his heart is hammering against her back. She purrs, relaxes into Clint in a way meant to relax him, arcs her back, sticks her nipples out in the air, watching Coulson watch her. “You know, I’m gay,” he tells her, almost conversationally.

Natasha smiles at him, an indulgent smile. Her eyes are adjusting to the blue light, and she can see _exactly_ how okay Coulson is with the proceedings, but she’s unsure how much of this is due to her, how much to Clint, and how much to the jolting sizzle of sex in the air, a scent like burning ozone and sweet rain, massing in the dark room like a thunderstorm gathering itself for a convulsion of lighting. She decides to test the waters. She rolls her head to the side and murmurs into Clint’s ear, a stage whisper meant for all to hear.

“Shhhh, Clint. _Dorogaya, drug, moya lyubov’_. See how he looks at you.” Clint grunts wordlessly, his eyes tight shut. His whole body is trembling. He’s completely flooded, she realizes, dangerously pressurized with emotions that have been building for months. If she can’t get him to unscrew the lid on that jar, he may well break in a way neither she nor Phil can fix. She runs her fingers soothingly over his arms, the side of his face, anywhere she can reach. “Shhh, baby. Easy. No one’s gonna hurt you. That’s your man, Clint. He’s all for you. And I’m going to give you to him tonight.”

_Thank you_ , Phil soundlessly mouths at her across the bed, and Natasha nods at him.

“NotgonnaleaveyouagainTasha,” grunts Clint into her neck. _Oh._ Is _that_ what this is about, Natasha thinks. She turns and takes Clint’s face in both hands, tilts their foreheads together so she can look in his fearful eyes.

“Darling,” she tells him. “My darling, my brother, my friend, my one and only love,” and he grabs her hands and he’s shaking, and that just undoes her. “Don’t you know, _golubka_?” she says, whispering into his lips. “You’ll never lose me. Where you go, I go. You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried.”

 

The night passes in frames, memories that shift and overlap like Polaroids sliding around in a shoebox:

 

Clint, penetrating her from behind, his cock a deep pressure against her spot, his left arm locked across her collarbone hostage-taker style, holding her up on her knees for Phil’s dark appraisal. Phil, watching, his gaze burning a slow path over her skin as Clint’s hands draw ripples across her surface: her nipples, the soft turn of her belly, the swollen lips of her sex spread wide under Clint’s V’d fingers. Natasha has heard about the phosphorous the Allies dropped on Germany during the war, how it fell through houses like molten steel, puddling for seconds before burning its way down through each successive floor, lighting the buildings up from within. She has never before known how it feels to be a burning cathedral.

“She likes it like this, sir.”

 

Phil’s hand on the back of Clint’s neck, Clint bent low over her pussy as he laps his fill, slow deep rolling laps like some great cat unfurling its tongue into a night river. Phil’s tone—stern and controlled and no-nonsense—as he tells Clint to slow down, to take his time, to do it right, Barton.

 

Natasha, underneath two men, one crammed into her and the other crammed into him, her head thrown back in a mass of sweaty curls, glorying in the orgasm that just keeps rolling _out of her_ and _out of her_ and _out of her_ , like the endless golden halo radiating from a Russian Madonna, like the tide sloshing its endless weight back and forth across the earth.

 

Clint face-down against the sheets, sweaty and slack, sated. Natasha belly-flops next to him, shoots him a look, and they both know _it’s so on_ , and they rise as one and turn against Phil, who is coming out of the bathroom with a glass of water and a butter-wouldn’t-melt expression, not a hair out of place. They catch him like linebackers right across the hips, a textbook takedown, and he makes a surprised little yelp as he goes down, and the water glass rolls into the next room, and then there’s no noise for a long time except breathy sighs and yummy little moans and one or two deliciously drawn-out, gravelly curses.

 

Exhaustion, in the blue morning. Clint, laying on his back between the two of them. Natasha has laid her hand over Clint’s heart and Phil is petting Clint’s belly, and he’s looking up at both of them, trust in his eyes. They don’t say much, but the silence is warm.

 

In the morning, when they wake up, Natasha’s gone. It’s okay. She gets prickly and restless after emotions; they know she won’t go far. The morning light is buttery and rich, and Clint and Phil lay in each other’s arms, just looking at each other, soaking up the moment, for a long time before Phil finally speaks.

“Hey you.”

A long pause while the moment soaks up light like warm milk soaking into bread.

“Hey you, too.”

 

It is a fine spring morning outside, wet and fresh, and Natasha feels her head clearing with every step she takes on her circuitous route towards the weekend market. Her sneakers bounce off the pavement in the cool morning dew, and she feels springy and youthful, as if her body, at the slightest provocation, might give off tender green shoots. She feels so good that she flirts—real flirting!—with the butcher behind the meat counter as she buys blood sausages for breakfast, then scallions and lovely fresh spinach, finishing off with an armload of gladiolas which she buys because they are beautiful, and because she can.

 

She walks back into the house carrying flowers and food, finds Phil at the breakfast table with the paper, Clint standing at the stove with a pan full of eggs. Phil looks over his glasses at her and smiles; Clint goes more for the stand-and-gawp tactic. She brushes past him to place her purchases on the table: “Close your mouth, Barton, you’re catching flies.”

“Who are you, and what have you done with my partner?” he says, making a grab for the grocery bag—she pulls it out of reach before addressing Coulson over her shoulder. “Do you have a vase here?”

“Sure,” says Coulson, who gets up and retrieves one from the cupboard above her head; she makes to move out of his way, but he stops her with a gentle hand on her shoulder, and she allows the contact, surprised by how okay she actually is with the simple, tactile press of him. It’s... not sexual at all. Just… comfortable. He hands the vase to her and returns to his paper: “Five-letter word for bedding, not a quilt?”

“Duvet,” says Clint, surprising absolutely everyone in the kitchen. “What?” he says at Natasha’s incredulous expression. “I told you, I know _all_ the secrets of the sisterhood.” Winks at her. Steals the sausages.

 

The rest of the week passes in relative peace and tranquility. Natasha spends hours reading in the window seat of Coulson’s living room, a sight which seems to make him happy; for their part, he and Clint spend an inordinate amount of time re-getting to know each other in the bedroom, the basement, the pantry, and (Natasha strongly suspects) the kitchen. (See if she ever goes out for milk again.) She stays far away from the bedroom, tries to give their fragile new state the respect it deserves—so far, it seems to be taking. No one is as surprised as she that her crude attempt at sexual psychotherapy has worked, that Clint is settling back in with Coulson, hasn’t thrown a duffel out the window and hightailed it to the nearest airport. Of course, if she hadn’t known, deep down, that Clint wanted to be with—belonged with—Phil, she never would have had the gall to proceed. (There are some things that even being a super-spy cannot give you the confidence to do, and initiating a threesome with your recently resurrected handler and one of the world’s better assassins is one of them.) She would go back to New York, except both Clint and Phil seem to be bending over backwards to make her comfortable and at-home: Coulson in particular has revealed a side that, up until a week or so ago, she never would have guessed existed. He’s _touchy_ , is the thing—touchy in a warm, loving, totally non-sexual way. It would be weird, except for how it’s not. In fact, it’s nice, so nice that Natasha finds herself confused by it. He kisses her on the forehead every time he says goodnight, smiles over his glasses at her every time she comes in the room. Catches her hand once on his way past in the hallway, says: “I just wanted you to know, I’m so grateful that you’re here.” Gives her hand a little squeeze and wanders back to his kitchen and his laptop, asking Clint if he needs a refill on his coffee, leaving Natasha unsure if she should, to use another bit of English idiom (this one from The Book Of Barton), smear shit in her hair or whistle Dixie.

Coulson’s apparently got some of the same thoughts on his mind. Sunday morning, they’re all sitting around in the breakfast nook: Tasha’s feet up on Clint’s chair, Clint with his bow (compound Norma Jean today) on the table. Coulson’s been flipping between NESN and CNBC, but some sort of internal timer must be chiming, because he turns off the television, tosses his glasses on the breakfast table, and sits up with the resigned sigh that means break time’s over. “All right, you two. We got some decisions to make.”

“Yeah, boss?” Clint says, looking up from the arrow whose fletching he’s been fiddling with.

“Yeah.” Phil scrubs his face. “As I’m sure you’ve both’ve guessed, Fury wants us all back on the job yesterday. He’s been patient so far, but I can’t put him off much longer. I have to talk to you about in what capacity I can return.”

Here it is. Natasha watches Clint’s lines stiffen, though he keeps rubbing the fletching between his fingers. Phil continues. “I want to be as honest as I can here. I don’t think I can go on being your handler. And just so we’re clear, I do not regret anything about our involvement. But I can’t see any way to continue being the Avengers’ main liaison to SHIELD, not responsibly, not having slept with two out of six of the team.”

“Only two?” says Clint, and Natasha slaps him across the back of the head without breaking eye contact with Coulson. She sits back. “Go on, sir.”

“Like I said, it just wouldn’t be feasible. And that one time with Thor doesn’t count, there were Jello shooters.”

Clint smiles at the joke, but his eyes are focused on the fletching. He’s slowly and methodically ruining it; he’ll be pissed about that later, but right now Natasha supposes it’s better than the alternative.

“Sir,” she asks, just to keep things moving along, “Have you thought about what you’ll do next?”

“Yes,” says Phil, sitting back. “And I want your thoughts. I have a few possible opportunities, but I want both of your opinions before I made a decision. One,” he says, counting on his fingers, “I quit my job at SHIELD and go private. There are plenty of defense contractors who’ve made offers, Stark Industries being one of them.”

Clint makes a dangerous noise in the back of his throat. Natasha is privy to some of Clint’s less-than-charitable thoughts regarding Pepper Potts.

“Second,” says Phil, “because I agree, first option is not ideal, I go work at the New York branch, training new Level 7 agents. I’d be working near the Tower so I could stop by, see people, but I would leave the actual liaising to someone less… involved.”

“Such as?” says Clint.

“I was thinking Maria Hill,” says Phil, and they all sit back and chew on that thought for a while. Natasha finds she doesn’t mind the way it swallows. She glances at Clint. He’s got an “I don’t like calamari, but I agree it’s a reasonable source of protein” look about him.

“I suppose I’d be okay with her,” he finally says.

“Okay then. I’ll call Nick,” says Phil, and they all sit quietly for a while, letting it settle in.

“Sir, I gotta question,” says Clint, after about five minutes of uninterrupted group contemplation.

“Barton, I’m pretty sure you don’t have to call me sir now.”

Clint blinks, wide and innocent. “You mean Maria is Sir now?” This time, he ducks before Natasha can make contact, and her hand passes harmless over his head and catches in Norma Jean’s complex rigging.

“Ow!”

“Serves you right!”

“Children,” says Phil, but he’s smiling as he says it.

“Oh _now_ you’re calling us children, that’s just sick if you don’t mind my saying sir—”

“My hand’s stuck in your damn bowstrings, help me get it out!”

“Well if you _stop struggling_ , maybe Norma Jean would let you out of her thighs. She’s powerful and you’ve got her all anxious!” The ensuing slapfight pulls Natasha’s hair into the mix, and then everyone has to stop and help unwind her from Norma Jean’s pulleys.

“You both need an assignment,” Phil observes.

“See?” says Clint, eyes not moving from the tangle of strands he’s slowly finessing apart. “What’re we gonna do without you to keep us in line?”

And Phil doesn’t have any answer to that at all.

 

“Well,” says Fury after about five uninterrupted minutes of contemplation, “I suppose it’s not the worst idea you’ve ever had.”

“Thank you, sir,” says Phil. Compliments from Nick are such delicate flowers. 

“Were you thinking about telling the team, or should I?”

“If it’s all right with you, I’d like to handle the transition. I have some loose ends to tie up, and I think Maria would appreciate a lateral handoff.”

“You don’t want me to tell her.”

“If it’s not too much trouble,” says Phil, aware he’s on thin ice. “I’ll have her read in by the end of the day and all the other team members by the end of the week.”

“Make it Wednesday on the other team members,” says Fury. “And get Jasper ready to move while you’re at it, I need bodies on the West Coast and this is as good a time to reorganize as any. Now,” he says, standing and buttoning his trenchcoat, “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go convince our new Vice President that he doesn’t need to know who killed JFK. Man has one champagne brunch with Charles Xavier and suddenly everything from the Cuban Missile Crisis on up is a national emergency. And Phil,” he says, pausing next to Phil in the doorway and putting a hand on his shoulder, “Welcome back.” 

Phil, aware he’s not exactly being wished unmitigated joy, waits for it.

“Now, before I go get started repressing a whole buncha memories about this conversation, is there anything else you think I desperately need to know about your private business, or can we please get back to the part where we keep the world from blowing up and I don’t have to know shit about your personal life?”

Phil thinks about it. “I used to be a coxswain, sir.”

Nick cackles all the way to the elevator.

 

Phil starts making calls immediately.

“Yeah,” Clint answers, and Phil is so proud he could burst—self-identifications on cells are for rookies who don’t mind being hunted down and shot by drones. Cheap drones, even. Hammertech drones.

“It’s a go,” says Phil.

“Excellent,” says Clint. “You want me to pack you a bag?”

“Please,” says Phil. “I’ve gotta get up there tonight, and I won’t have a chance to come back for a while.” He can already hear the crash of several suitcases coming off the top shelf of the closet.

“Sir? You ever been told you got too many ties?”

“No one’s ever complained,” says Phil, and there’s a long, breathy chuckle from Clint that cascades down Phil’s spine. Clint clears his throat and his voice becomes muffled. “Oh, heya… yeah. Yeah… you wanna talk to him?” Coming back to the speaker. “Hey there. Little sister wants to talk to you.”

Natasha’s voice comes on. “I take it we’re locking up tight?”

“Please,” says Phil.

“Boss,” says Natasha, “It would be my genuine pleasure.”

 

“”Is this about what I think it’s about?” says Maria.

“Probably,” Coulson says. “Where are you? You sound like you’re in a wind tunnel.”

“I’m driving to Jersey!” Maria shrieks, and Phil holds the phone slightly away from his ear. “And this ASSHOLE is all over the road—HEY, ASSHOLE! Not you hon, you’re fine. YEAH YOU! ASSHOLE! Phil, I’m losing signal. Can I call you when I get to the Meadowlands?”

“Oh, right,” says Phil, the penny spinning an unusually long time before the drop. Maria’s semi-annual Springsteen pilgrimage. She’s done it seven times since he’s known her, and she always comes back looking flushed and happy and about eighteen years old. “Just call me when you get out, okay? I wanna have drinks with you afterwards.”

“In the city? Shit— _crackeglglglg wompwompwomp_ —you sure? It’s gonna be really late.”

“I’m sure,” says Phil. “Call me whenever you’re out. I’ll meet you.”

“ _sprzle—ffzzz_ \---ds great! I’ll call you!” Maria hollers into the phone, and then she’s gone.

“OK," Phil says, hanging up the phone and turning to the recently-promoted Bridget, whose rise from the typing pool to the elite corps of Fury’s personal assistants has been nothing short of meteoric. "Do you know where I can find Jasper?"

 

"I guess I was kind of expecting this," says Jasper over a late afternoon lunch at the nearly-empty steakhouse down the street from headquarters. "They've been sending me out to the L.A. offices every week since you were hospitalized. You know we only have three Spanish-speaking Level Sevens in the whole organization?"

Phil immediately begins counting them up, sticking his fingers out from his fork. "There's you," he says, swallowing heavily. His shrimp salad is limp and a little icy.

"Hoyuela in Mutant Relations," they both say at the same time.

"Figured out who the third one is yet?" Jasper asks, smiling cheekily and attacking his steak with gusto.

"No," admits Phil.

"'s Maria Hill," says Jasper, swallowing triumphantly and beaming at Phil's look of utter confusion. "Yeah. I know. Was while you were in the hospital. She went to Fury the day after New York and said, put me where you need people. I'll go anywhere. Now, you gotta understand, while you were out? It was rough. We lost fifty people that day in New York alone. Eighty-three more between the Helicarrier and New Mexico, and for a week those numbers weren’t even firm. Like, we didn’t even _know_ who we’d lost, if you can imagine that. So Fury says, do you speak Spanish, which I would have paid good money to see the look on Maria's face, but get this, she says, _give me three weeks_. And I tell her, Maria. You can't learn a language in three weeks. I've been working on my Chinese for three _years_ and I'm still not fluent. But girl goes down to the language instructors and she gets every book and fuckin’ audiotape they have. Puts herself in class with all the rookies. Has _Barton_ tutoring her. By week two, she's total immersion. I go over to her office, she's got Univision on the TV, she won't speak to me in anything but Spanish. If she can't figure out how to say it, it doesn't get said. I watched her eat lunch for three days without any ketchup because she couldn't remember the word to ask the lunch ladies for it. And you know how Maria is with her ketchup."

Phil grunts. He’s seen Maria walk up to a table full of Hell’s Angels and demand the usage of their ketchup.

“By week three, she’s going out on assignments. And not like little milk run assignments either. I’m talking, she’s going down to Tampa to try and talk the fucking mutant _secessionistas_ down from a gang war with the Human League in the middle of the goddamn hurricane season, and did you know the Florida mutants have a weather controller in their midst?”

“Did it work?”

“Is Tampa still there, man?”

Phil makes a mental note to check if Tampa is still around. He’s missed a lot of news. But Jasper is smiling, so he’s guessing that Tampa’s all right. “So what you’re telling me is Maria’s going to have Fury’s job in another ten years.”

“Try four,” says Jasper. “Girl’s got _ganas_. And Fury’s got a granddaughter he’s been wanting to spend some time with.”

“I’ve seen the pictures,” Phil says. Jasmine Renee is, without question, the most closely guarded infant in existence. Privately, Phil has serious doubts if the infant in Fury’s wallet pictures is even her—given the depth and scope of Nick’s paranoia, he can’t rule out body doubles. Jasper is making a futile attempt to flag down a waiter for their check; in about five minutes, he’ll find out that Phil’s already paid, but Phil lets him enjoy the hunt. Jasper is the kind of man who likes flagging cabs from across three lanes of traffic.

“So, what are you going to be doing back here in the frozen North while I’m out in Los Angeles eating In ‘N Out burgers every day and Blake Lively every night?” says Jasper, with typical optimism. (No less than three separate SHIELD agents have tried to tell Jasper that Blake Lively is happily married to Ryan Reynolds. He’s convinced it’s vicious slander.)

“I’ll be training new agents for the New York branch,” says Phil. “Bringing people up the ladder, trying to fill in the gaps.”

Jasper nods, looks pleased. “Good. Good. This is all good. Moving forward, man! Onward and upward, y’know. Gotta keep things rolling. I gotta say, though, I’m gonna miss old times with you all. Everyone together on the ops, you know. Did you ever think we’d be looking back on shit like Budapest and going, man, those were the good old days?”

“Never,” Phil says, truthfully.

 

Phil takes the 5 PM shuttle to LaGuardia, catches a cab to Midtown, gets out about three blocks from Stark-now-Avengers Tower, in the mood for a walk. The evening is chilly and not particularly pleasant, but any kind of weather after getting impaled is better weather than you ever thought you’d see again. Manhattan is still healing; Phil notes a few areas where thick plastic garbage bags are taped over damaged cornices and scaffolding scabs over edifices. Higher up, faded construction paper signs still hang in some of the windows, thanking the Avengers—though notably not so much the Hulk—in marker and crayon. Phil buys a dirty-water hot dog and munches as he ambles, knowing he’ll pay later and not particularly caring. (Any kind of food, after being impaled, tastes better than anything you ever thought you’d eat again.) He passes East 47th Street, where the Manhattan SHIELD offices are; he’s been there only once before, remembers floors crammed chockablock with cubicles, stacks of folders on every spare surface. When Phil first came to SHIELD, it was a sort of a trans-governmental repository for Problem Children: unruly assets, unsolvable casefiles, and incompetent secretaries who couldn’t be fired because they were Related to Someone. Only the secretarial problem has been resolved—Nick canned everyone not carrying a firearm within about five minutes of becoming director—but everything else remains, including the mountains of paperwork and the increasingly unruly assets. Phil knows that, once he steps inside, it will be at least three weeks of office showers, 30-second naps, and burnt coffee before he gets to leave. That’s just how it is when you’re leading a new team: you have to prove that you eat and sleep less than they do, and like treadmills and paperwork much **more** than they do, before they’ll entrust their lives to you. It’s how you prove you’re not selfish; prove that the team—their safety, their needs, the integrity of their op plans—comes first. When they start spreading rumors that you’re an android or a robot or a mindless government drone, that’s when you know you’ve done your job right. Androids don’t fail. Robots aren’t lazy. You can rely on a mindless government drone to be there, watching your back, even if you’d rather him not notice what you’re up to. And Phil is very, very good at playing that role. It’s just that he hasn’t had to play it in so long: that must be what’s making the thought of dusting off the old bag of tricks so exhausting.

 

Well. Not exactly. If he’s honest, Phil’s gotten spoiled. Riding herd on a batch of green Level 7s is a far cry from waking up in a warm, sunny house with Clint in his arms, a far cry from leisurely mornings with crosswords and lazy afternoons in bed (and in the kitchen and the basement and the office and the guest bedroom twice and the closet under the stairs once). He’s not sure how Natasha hasn’t murdered them yet, but he’s grateful, grateful for the soothing effect of her presence on Clint’s restless mind, grateful for her pragmatic Russian approach to relationships, grateful above all for her brave and elegant solution to their complicated triangular problem. Watching her physically defuse Clint’s emotional meltdown had been like watching a gifted mathematician step to the chalkboard and reduce a forest of variables to two or three terms in clean, sure strokes, leaving only clarity behind. Phil knows, no matter how long he lives, that he will never be this woman’s equal—would never even try. She’s been Clint’s world, his gravity, his solar system, for years; Phil’s seen Clint throw himself off buildings for her, give her the air in his lungs in the middle of a riot of tear gas. He’s acutely aware that the only reason Clint’s with him now is because Natasha allowed it, encouraged it, and finally gave him away, as physically and as simply as it is possible to give someone. And that should create resentment, except for how it… doesn’t. In fact, it’s made Phil love and admire Natasha incalculably more. Seeing her in his living room, curled up in the window seat like a lovely cat, made him feel privileged, trusted. But Natasha’s trust confers responsibility, and while Phil’s used to being responsible, this is a whole new level of the stuff. He lies awake at night watching Clint sleep, feeling the fear of losing him rise up and wrap around his throat, so much he can barely breathe—and the next morning he meets Natasha’s clear, steady gaze, and he knows he **_has_** to keep being what both Clint and Natasha need; to keep being the best Phil Coulson he can possibly be. Their trust both presses him down and pulls him up, and most of the time he’s so confused that he doesn’t know what to think. He knows what Clint would say about this feeling. You don’t know whether to smear shit in your hair or whistle Dixie.

 

“Agent Coulson, may I just say how wonderful it is to see you again,” says JARVIS, his voice genuinely enthused, and Phil is caught off-guard by the wave of emotion rising up in his throat. There’s no one around to see—Phil’s alone in the only elevator still running from the ground floor of Stark Tower, a freight elevator used by the contractors who are repairing the eighth, tenth, and sixty-third through sixty-eighth floors. The elevator’s full of sawdust and mud, and parts of the shaft are lined with plastic wrap where the drywall’s been cut away—but it’s evening, so all the contractors are gone, and it’s just Phil and his black swipey card and JARVIS, and for the life of him right now Phil can’t remember why he’s supposed to keep a straight face. Why it’s not okay to cry.

“You too, old plum,” he says, patting the frame of the elevator as if JARVIS can feel him. “Missed you too.”

The freezing, dry wind rattles the plastic wrap walls the contractors have left, and it’s cold as hell, but the silence is warm.

 

“ _Phil_ ,” says Pepper, and enfolds him in a hug that Stark doesn’t even seem to mind—“How are you, buddy,” he says, stepping forward and giving Phil the kind of two-handed grip you’d give a president. Of course, Phil reminds himself, Stark’s done that before. The President thing. Stark’s gaze is steady and his hands surround Phil’s, and suddenly Phil is very thankful that Tony Stark only built weapons and never entered politics, where he could have been _really_ dangerous. It feels _genuine_ , is the thing—Phil feels like everything he’s seen from Stark up until now has been plastic, faux fur, a knockoff of an imitation of a fragrance from a mall. This is…. different. This feels like being let into an inner circle, and the weirdest thing about it is, it’s not a glad-handing, hail-fellow-well-met kind of inner circle. It’s more like a welcome-to-the-hurt-locker kind of inner circle. It’s painful, and heady, and more than a little weird, and it lasts about a millisecond before Stark smiles—well, on him it’s a smile, on anyone else it would be a flinch—and lets go, and lets Pepper smooth their way into the living room like the matchless hostess she is, and Phil says hello to Thor and Captain Rogers, who all ignore his pleas not to get up and come bounding over to greet and hug him and are restrained only by Pepper’s frantic signaling from thwacking him heartily on the back. Thor in particular pulls his swing so much that he ends up patting Phil on the collarbone, his expression comically ginger.

“My friend,” he says, “It is good to see you fully recovered. We were very much concerned.”

“It was nothing,” says Phil, and Thor’s face nearly splits in half, he’s beaming so hard. (His first Asgardian joke, a success! Phil is going to make himself a s’more when he gets home, see if he doesn’t.) 

“Good to see you again, sir,” says Rogers.

“Thanks for the cards,” Phil says. “You really didn’t have to go to the trouble.”

“Yes he did,” says Stark, appearing at Rogers’s elbow. “In fact, if we could have wrapped them in Nick Fury’s resignation letter, we would’ve. Still working on that. J, tell Doctor Banner to come up, will you, we’re having a party? Phil, what’re you drinking,” and Pepper’s insisting that he take off his coat and stay awhile, and Thor is practically **fanning** him over to a chair like he’s a dainty Victorian maiden, and Phil really needs to get shanked more often.

 

“I want to start by apologizing to all of you for not touching base earlier,” says Phil, once everyone’s got drinks and seats (Stark is actually perched on the back of the couch that Dr. Banner’s sitting on). “I’m given to understand that you all came to see me while I was hospitalized. My memories are blurry, and I’m sorry I wasn’t much company—all right, all right,” he says over the chorus of gentle remonstrations, “I simply wanted to say that I’m grateful, for your concern and your friendship. It means a lot to me, more than you know. But it also means, unfortunately, that starting this week, I will no longer be your main liaison to SHIELD. Maria Hill will be transitioning in as your main point of—” and the room erupts, and everyone’s asking questions and answering them themselves and shouting over each other and threatening Nick Fury with what strikes Phil as excessive relish. He holds up his hands for quiet (which doesn’t work at all) and says quietly (which does), “This was not Director Fury’s call.”

“Whose was it?” asks Banner, and it’s to him that he addresses his answer.

“It was mine.”

“Why,” says Stark, and it’s not phrased like a question.

“Events have left me unacceptably compromised,” says Phil, more than a few seconds ahead of his judgment, and the room erupts again.

“Everyone _in this room_ is emotionally compromised—”

“—bond _not_ to form amongst warriors would be most unnatural—”

“—treat us like normal folks is what makes you different from Fury—”

“—the point of having a team, I tell you—” Stark is saying, throwing up his hands, and Phil can see the moment the penny drops for him, because his mouth snaps shut. “Holy shit.” He looks at Phil, his gaze suddenly furious. _“Where are Agents Barton and Romanov?”_

 “Right now,” says Phil, “They’re packing up my house in D.C.”

“And why are they there instead of here?” says Stark, sliding silkily around the couch. “They _are_ part of this team, are they not? Nevermind, don’t answer that. It’s because—”

“They’ve been read in,” says Phil.

“Not what I was gonna say, don’t interrupt. It’s because they’re the source of the compromise—they _are **the**_ compromise. So tell me, Agent. Is it Barton? Or Romanov? Or is it both? Inquiring minds have bets to settle, cause I gotta tell you people were starting to wonder if you were an android under the suit.” And now Stark is in Phil’s space and no one’s blinking and Phil’s just decided he wants first punch when suddenly Steve’s there. “Guys. Let’s take this down a notch.”

Stark doesn’t budge. Neither does Phil. “For Doctor Banner, if no one else,” Steve clarifies.

“Brucey, you good?” says Stark out of the corner of his mouth.

“I’d feel better if _everyone_ took a deep breath,” says Banner, standing, and Stark, after waiting a beat, breaks the gaze. Phil gives Stark a hard stare for a second more before turning away, walking to the bar, bracing his hands against the marble, taking a deep breath. Stupid, stupid, _stupid_. Letting Stark goad him into red-mist territory has to be the dumbest thing he’s ever done. Scratch that. Letting Stark seduce him into _caring what Stark thought in the first place_ is the dumbest thing he’s ever done. He wants to let Bridget-from-the-typing-pool just have his job: he’s clearly not up to it anymore.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “This is not how I wanted this to go.” 

And from across the room, he hears something utterly unexpected from Stark.

“Me too.” Stark pivots, faces Phil. “Sorry, that is. I mean. Try again?”

_And just like that, he pulls me right back in._ One part of Phil’s brain observes in silent awe as the rest of Phil is masterfully disarmed, charmed, soothed. It’s like watching your own open-heart surgery when you’re in too much shock to move. And as Phil watches Stark calm everyone down and get everyone’s drink refilled, it occurs to him that Stark’s done that, too.

 

When he finally gets out of the Tower, it’s ten-thirty and he’s exhausted. Multiple rounds of drinks segued into dinner and then coffee, and Phil’s had to make several major promises on behalf of himself _and_ Strike Team Delta, and he’s not sure how any of them are going to go down with Clint and Natasha. Right now, though, he really needs to talk to someone else.

 

“I’VE BEEN TRYING TO GET OUT OF LOT C FOR TEN MINUTES!” hollers Maria over a chorus of car horns. She sounds ecstatic, or as close to ecstatic as a Long Islander can be in traffic. She’s already sung him two verses of “Born to Run”.

“Take your time,” says Phil. “I’m gonna run over to East 47th for a little while. Call me once you’re through the tunnel?”

“YOU BET! CAN’T WAIT TO SEE YOU!” hollers Maria, who, as always, has gotten herself a seat right next to the amps in the hopes of being sweated on by Springsteen. Phil’s not sure how she’s not deaf yet, but he’s grateful that she’s in a good mood. She’ll have an uphill slog, gaining acceptance from the Avengers, and Phil knows he didn’t do her any favors today.  He tucks his phone into his coat pocket and goes looking for his new office.

 

“Tash?” says Clint, who’s standing on an overturned plastic laundry hamper that is slowly collapsing under his boots. “Come lookit this.”

“Stop snooping through your boyfriend’s closet, it’s undignified,” says Natasha, but comes right over. Clint comes thudding down from the hamper with a shoebox in his hands.

“It’s us,” he says. Natasha looks. The box is full of stuff, mostly scraps of paper and old receipts, but some objects catch her eye—a paper clip, bent to make a lock shim. A battery. Two Lego bricks. She delicately stirs the papers with her fingertip.

“Look,” says Clint, fishing out one of the receipts. “This is for the donut he bought me.” He shows it to her, catches her disbelieving glance, and huddles back into himself defensively, dropping the receipt back into the box. “What, it was a significant donut.”

“Ooh, look, it’s my shoelace,” Natasha says, fishing a long purple lace out of the box.

Clint makes a grab for it. “You mean _my_ shoelace. I always wondered where this one went to…. what is it doing in there?”

Natasha smiles smugly. “I was using it for a little while.”

Clint frowns, and Natasha waits for the penny to drop, but then Clint shrugs, apparently giving up on the mystery, and goes back to rummaging around in the shoebox. Natasha sighs. She’ll eventually tell Clint what she did with the shoelace. In time for Christmas.

 

Phil’s elbow-deep into the pile of folders waiting for him in NYHQ when Maria appears in the circle of light from the gooseneck lamp on his desk. He’s been the only one left on the floor for a while now.  He looks up—Maria is smiling down at him with a fond expression that probably means his hair is disheveled.

“Look at you, burning the midnight oil,” she says, and—yup—reaches out and smoothes his hair. Her voice is almost completely blown out; she must have been screaming for three solid hours.

“How was Bruce?” Phil asks her, even though he knows the answer by heart.

Maria sighs, crosses her palms over her heart, flutters her eyelashes in a parody of girlishness that’s only accentuated by her (real) blush. “He’s _dreamy_.” She drops into a chair, crosses her bootheels on the corner of Phil’s desk. “How’s your new team?”

“Oh, the usual assortment. Couple of problem children, couple of scientists, Melinda May was a nice surprise,” Phil says before his brain catches up. He looks at Maria. “So you heard already.”

Maria nods, her cheek cushioned on her fist. “Word travels fast.”

“How mad, scale of one to ten, are you at me right now?”

“Oh, it was an eleven, but seeing as it lets you be with the love of your life after almost-dying _and_ I got to touch Nils Lofgren tonight? We’ll knock it back to an eight or so.”

Phil grimaces. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it, sweetie,” says Maria. “Sooner or later I’ll tie your shoelaces together and we’ll call it even.”

“Use a sheet bend,” Phil suggests.

“Sheet bend this, Eagle Scout.” Maria says, flipping him off. He sticks his tongue out at her, and they both relax back into their chairs, grinning at each other. They don’t say much, but the silence is warm.

 

Clint makes it all the way to six o’clock the next morning before calling. “Waaaake uuuup,” he caterwauls in Phil’s ear. “You’re laaate,”

“Late for what?” Phil says, palming the sleep out of his eyes. He fell asleep on his desk after Maria left around two-thirty. She offered to bring him back to Long Island, where her parents have a guesthouse over the pool, but he hadn’t wanted to deal with the morning traffic into Manhattan.

“Pancake breakfast at the Tower,” says Clint. “Or should I say, home sweet home?”

_Shit_. “Stark told you.”

“Stark told me,” Clint says, his voice rich with amusement. “And no backsies, he said it was the condition of our continued cooperation with SHIELD. Tash ‘n me have already decided we like being Avengers better. Better food, better parties, and you should see the barracks.”

Phil closes his eyes briefly, feels the sunlight pass over his face. Clint’s safer this way, is the thing. They all are. As public figures, as the Avengers, they can and will be targeted—but now people will notice, and people will care, if they disappear. And that’s a kind of safety Phil has wanted for Clint ever since he woke up in Tahiti. He scrubs his hand down his face. “OK,” he says. _Fuck it. Let the chips fall where they may._ “I can’t come home for pancakes, but I’ll try and stop by after dinner, pick up a change of clothes.”

“All right,” Clint says easily, like Phil hasn’t just basically agreed to move into his weird superhero commune. “See you later. Oh, and Stark owns a moving company. Did you know Stark owns a moving company?”

For a moment Phil knows what sudden cabin depressurization feels like. “He _wouldn’t_ —”

Clint chuckles, a sound like a prop plane spinning down. “Naw, I didn’t let ‘em touch Lola. Not to worry. All your other stuff’s up here, though.”

Phil no longer has to wonder how a heart attack feels. “You’re worse than Fury,” he says, and means it.

“That’s why you like me, sir,” Clint says, and Phil wonders how it is that he knows Clint so well that he can hear the exact kind of stretch Clint is doing (cell-phone arm’s elbow pointing up, other arm out and back, face all scrunched as he deliberately pops every vertebrae from neck to shoulderblade) just from the tone of his voice.

“I gotta get going,” he says, watching the new recruits tumble out of the elevator and silently marking his as they stumble towards coffee, knowing all the other handlers cautiously poking their heads up from behind the cubicle walls are doing the same. It’s sort of like watching the first flock of mallards land from inside a duck blind.

“Alrighty, later,” Clint says; Phil hangs up gently, careful not to alert any of the newbies to his gaze, though frankly they all look like an atomic bomb would fail to alert them. One of them is actually pouring a packet of lemon juice into her coffee instead of Splenda. He sneaks a look over at the other handlers. One of them is actually moving his lips as he counts his new recruits. Phil fervently hopes the lemon juicer belongs to him. He watches Grant Ward poke disconsolately through the selection of stale herbal teabags before casting a despairing glance over the other newbies who are, with the touching optimism of youth, loading K-cups into the Keurig that Phil knows has been broken since the day it was brought into the office. FitzSimmons are the first to realize the Keurig isn’t working, cheeringly enough, and Phil watches as they first unplug the machine (good thinking!), then upend the water compartment over Fitz’s pants (not so good thinking!) and finally start a slapfight over who gets to take the control compartment apart with the screwdrivers they both apparently keep on their persons (thinking?). He sighs. This will be a long three weeks. 

“So what I’m thinking,” Tony Stark says, unnecessarily as far as Clint’s concerned because being around Stark is like a constant 24/7 seminar in What Tony Is Thinking Right Now, “Is floors. Individual, highly customized floors with everything that the team needs for their personal quirks, JARVIS-integrated of course, and a big all-team gathering space-slash-rumpus room right… here.” Clint turns around from where he’s been unpacking Phil’s plates into the small kitchenette. Stark’s got one of those 3-D blueprints balanced on his tablet, the model rotating slowly like a car on a showroom floor. He goes over and squints at where Stark is pointing in the building. Yep. Space. 

“Sounds nice,” he hazards.

“ _Nice_ , it’s going to be more than nice, it’s going to be _awesome_. Lemme walk you through the plan here,” and Stark does a pinch-and-magnify gesture that makes the blueprint quadruple in size, sets the tablet on the floor and gives the whole hologram a sort of lazy twirl that sets it spinning between them. As he touches each floor in the wireframe model, it lights up in red so Clint can distinguish the levels. “Brucey’s gonna have top floor, that’s so he can be closest to R  & D, that’s my lab right there, already planning on knocking that wall out, or, y’know, asking Hulk to. Nicely. I think he understands the concept of load and non-load-bearing walls, don’t you? Anyway, lots of soundproofing, yoga studio, coupla nice sensory deprivation tanks and one room that’s all pillows, it’s awesome. Next up’s Cap, he gets the designer treatment, Pepper found this dude who’s like, the king of retro, he’s gonna make it all Home Sweet Great Depression in there, I don’t know. Art studio, boxing ring, whatever, Pep’s in love, I don’t ask questions.” Stark sniffs, pokes the model. “Movie theater, reference library, yadda yadda. Moving on. Big ‘n Tall, now he was a challenge. I’ve already reinforced a balcony for his landing pad, but that’s only temporary and eventually I wanna get him, like, a crag of rock or something so he can go all Ten Commandments. We’re talking to a granite guy in Vermont. Inside, gonna look like Caesar’s Palace blew a load on the walls. Lotsa gold, lotsa velvet, we’re gonna put a twelve-foot-long fireplace along this wall with heated flagstones in front, plenty of rugs and cushions, kind of an orgy pit. Room to wine ‘n dine about fifty. Basically your basic royal diplomatic shag pad.”

“Wow,” says Clint.

“Save your wows, up next is you, Katniss. Shooting range. Gym. Now I understand you lift, right, free weights?”

Clint nods silently.

“Well check this out. Weight room already planned that will make you **cry** , we got over five hundred separate pieces of equipment all sittin’ in the mail room in crates, ready to bring up just’s soon as we finish reinforcing the floor. Here comes Natasha, now I gotta say, I could use some of your input there, cause I find her really hard to get a bead on. Guess that’s the, erm, idea.” Stark’s mouth twitches. “Get a load of this.” Does the blow-uppy thing to Natasha’s floor. “Another gym, another yoga room, another firing range but better for guns. Apartment, very basic but we talked to a consultant from the CIA about security for people who’ve been in combat? Lines-of-sight and whatnot. Don’t worry, he never saw a blueprint. But, uh, Natasha’s whole apartment? Is basically a panic room. Fireproof, doors and walls are bullet- and axe-proof, windows graded to withstand anything up to and including a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher, that’s actually true for the whole building, I am sick of having the places where I live get rocketed, independent passive air system, stellar communication linkup to the outside with multiple backups, bombproof up to a point. Yours is the same, just so you know. Oh **and** Natasha’s got a pool room. Lap tank, sauna, infinity pool with a view of lower Manhattan, and a Jacuzzi. And a, uh, big closet for all her. Uh. Shoes. Pepper says that’s important.” Stark’s eyes slide sideways to Clint’s face, and Clint doesn’t believe _for a second_ that any of that stuff about security was _for_ _Natasha_ , but he’s so busy trying to get his facial expressions under control that he can’t come up with an adequate response. Stark apparently gets the read he’s looking for and turns back to the model, zeroing in on the next floor down. “Now, Agent Coulson. You gotta tell me if all this is right. Temperature- and humidity-controlled display and storage room for all his memorabilia, office, library, home gym, nothing too fancy, but a nice big kitchen and a private space with two flanking in the garage for, what is the car called again?”

“Lola,” says Clint in a small voice.

“Lola, right. And a uh, big bedroom. Big bed. Yeah.” Stark is losing his battle against the Giggle Fit That Ate Manhattan.   “Come on, you gotta give me something, you’re worse than Fury with the no-facial-expressions thing. Tell me. Who’s the lucky winner, is it like Party of Five in there every night, ya gotta give me something.”

“It’s me,” says Clint tonelessly, reaching out and spinning the model with his finger as Stark is carried off into ecstasies of juvenile mirth. He’s wondering how the whole thing holds together, how it doesn’t all just go spinning off into space.

 

“I want to thank you for seeing me on such short notice,” Phil says, unbuttoning his coat and sitting down.

“Phil, in all the years I’ve had you as a client, I think you’ve asked to see me in person twice? I think you’ve earned an exception to the appointment requirement,” says Doug. Doug is Phil’s CPA. He is also Phil’s retirement planner, financial consultant and sometimes-lawyer. He is also on the board of the Federal Reserve. The benefits at the far upper reaches of SHIELD are really, really nice.

“Nonetheless, I thank you. I’m here because I’m about to make some rather sudden changes in my life,” says Phil.

“Such as?” says Doug. Doug favors white shirts with cream pinstripes. He is fond of golf. He lives in Elizabethtown, where, on weekends, he and his husband show English Springer Spaniels, and he is everything Phil was supposed to be in life—personally, culturally, socially—and probably would have been, had Phil’s life unfolded according to plan. Phil regrets nothing. 

“I’m going to be moving into a, for lack of a better word, commune with a bunch of superheroes. I’m going to be selling my home in D.C. and moving all my belongings to Stark Tower in New York. You’ve probably seen it on TV being attacked by aliens. I’m going to be changing my will so that one of my coworkers, a former supervisee who is now my, for lack of a better word, boyfriend, gets durable power of attorney and all my stuff if I die. I also need to make sure his, for lack of a better word, assassin ex-girlfriend is well-taken–care-of in the event of my death. I might die,” Phil adds, probably (upon reflection) unnecessarily.

Doug sits back, looks at Phil steadily for a moment. Says, “Give me until noon?”

 

Natasha waits a discrete interval after Stark leaves Phil’s temporary quarters before going to find Clint. He’s sitting on the kitchenette floor between Phil’s boxes, and he’s twiddling a heavy glass tumbler in a manner that suggests he’s been doing so for quite some time. Clint can get like this when he’s emotionally overwhelmed. The first time Natasha told him she loved him, he spaced on a pinball machine so badly she had to drop an ice cube down the back of his jeans to get him unglued. She sits down next to him.

“Hey there,” she says, nudging him with her shoulder and reaching around to skritch him between the shoulderblades. He wriggles into the touch, so she proceeds.

“Stark show you all his special drawings?”

“What, no. Maybe. Yeah, he showed me the blueprints.”

She presses her lips to the shoulder seam of his t-shirt, waits. Breathes in his sharp, tangy summertime scent—like a rubber band stretched over sweaty fingers. She knows it wouldn’t appeal to every woman, but it appeals to her. And, apparently, to Phil: she’s caught him, in unguarded moments, breathing Clint’s scent in while he’s checking for head injuries, unlocking the car, handing Clint the mission briefing. Phil’s habit was actually what gave him away, all that time ago in Budapest. Natasha had known ( _because she has eyes in her head_ ) about Clint’s crush on Phil from the first time she saw them together; she had not known it was reciprocated until they were holed up in a tiny room in Budapest with three other injured agents for four days waiting for an extraction. Everyone stunk, everyone had morning breath, and everyone breathed through their mouths a whole lot—except Phil. Phil, who was sitting next to Clint _for four days_. Natasha remembered the moment that it clicked for her: she’d been showing Jasper Sitwell how Russians maintained their firearms in extreme weather conditions, and something about Coulson’s breathing patterns had caught her ear. They were… off. Deliberate. Interrogation and Observation 101: any autonomous function (blinking, breathing, pulse) should follow a natural pattern. Deviations from the pattern always signify something. _What_ , varies; the significance does not. Natasha hadn’t looked up, hadn’t paused in her movements—Phil, though not a spy, would have noticed that. She just… counted. Talked to Jasper about the freezing points of various oils, disassembled her Glock, and counted. And by the time she sat back and handed Jasper the slide lock, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that her handler had a gigantic crush on her partner, that he was using her partner’s frankly ripe scent to soothe and reassure himself of Clint’s continued health, and what’s **more** , that he was barely even aware he was doing it. Interesting.

“The thing is,” Clint says, and Natasha sort of startles back to life. It’s been almost forty-five minutes, and the kitchenette is full of hazy afternoon light. “I keep going back to. None of us have real families. Right? I mean, Thor’s got Days of Our Lives and all, but that’s kinda it. Unless Banner has a kid or something somewhere?”

Natasha frowns, shakes her head. “There was nothing in the briefing packet. An old girlfriend was all.”

“Right. So I can see Stark’s angle, and I can sorta see what everyone else is getting out of it. Except Coulson.” He frowns down at the tumbler in his hands, rotating it so beams of light go scattering out over the kitchen cabinets. Natasha watches Clint’s eyes tracking them as they go. “I can’t see what he’s getting out of this.”

_Oh. So that’s what this is about._ Natasha doubts that telling Clint how Coulson obviously feels about him will help; verbal declarations of love tend to produce a 404 error with Clint. (See: the pinball machine incident.) So she just snuggles closer, presses her lips a little more firmly to his shoulder, and sits there in the sunlight with him while he studies the glass. They don’t say much else, but the silence is warm.

 

“An entire goddamn plane,” says Nick Fury. “Planes are _expensive_ , Phil.”

“I know, sir,” say Phil, for what feels like at least the eightieth time that evening. They’ve been drinking scotch in Phil’s new office since eight o’clock. It’s now coming up on ten, and they’ve made a considerable dent in Phil’s liquor supply (top drawer, fourth rear filing cabinet). Nick doesn’t usually let his subordinates buy the booze, but he’s making an exception tonight. Phil feels that’s fair. He sits back and puts his feet up on one of the many rolling chair, mirroring Fury's posture.

"So is the new team any good?" Fury finally asks, and Phil relaxes. It's only taken two hours of groveling and about half a quart of good scotch to get Nick unstuck from the plane issue. He's mellowing in his old age.

"They'll do," Phil says into his glass, a tiny smile quirking the corner of his mouth.

Nick studies the smile, reads it correctly. "Aw, shit." It's his fake-grumpy voice. "Just keep them the hell away from downtown, would you? I can only afford to replace one city center per millennia."

"Will do, boss."

“Oh and they are _not_ allowed on the Helicarrier. Not for any reason. Not even if we’re evacuating Earth.”

“Understood, boss.”

“Oh and can you do something about that pair a Siamese twins you got on the Geek Squad? Get ‘em to wear nametags or something? I can never tell which one of ‘em I’m asking to get my coffee.”

“As soon as I figure it out myself, boss, I’ll have a set of badges made.”

“Good.” Fury looks off into the distance for a few more moments. Phil knows from long experience that this only means that Nick is thinking of more things to ask for. He waits.

“Oh and another thing, can you get Stark to stop sending me the damn bills for his therapy? Now that you’re best buds and all.”

“I think that may be out of even my powers, sir,” says Phil. “He enjoys it too much.”

“Damn. Wonder how he’s gonna enjoy my boot up his ass.”

“I imagine there won’t be much room, what with Captain Rogers’s and Miss Potts’s footwear already jammed up there.”

Fury snorts. “Takes a lot of rudder to steer that boy.”

“Yes, sir.”

“More even than his old man.”

“I wouldn’t know, sir.”

“That’s right, you never really got that chance to work with him, did you?” Phil shakes his head and Fury reaches for the scotch, refills them both while talking. “Howard Stark was a drunk, a pill-popper, and real low-down with his women—and I’m saying that as his _friend_. So any beef that Junior has, ’s probably at least ninety percent legitimate. I wouldn’t have wanted to be married to Howard, and I _especially_ wouldn’t have wanted to trade places with Junior. But I’ll say this about Howard: he was a true patriot. He had offers from the Soviets, documented offers with serious money, and not just the Russians either. Everyone wanted his designs—the Chinese, the North Koreans. Hell, the Cubans built a damn palace for him before they even made an overture, we’ve got the surveillance files. He told them they could all go fuck ‘emselves. He knew where his loyalties lay. You gave him a problem, he solved it without making six more of them. I miss that about him.”

Phil nods, and Fury stares into his drink, and New York moves along outside the way it always does, but inside, things are quiet and still. When Fury finally rouses himself, it’s to stand up and resettle his jacket on his shoulders.

“All right, that’s enough. Time to go home.”

‘You have a good night, sir,” Phil says, looking over his snowdrifts of paperwork, and Fury pauses in his adjustment of his collar.

“Naw, Coulson. You must not of heard me. I said, _time to go home_.”

“Sir, I’ve got—”

“I know what you got, I got ten times that much and I’m telling you. You don’t go home every once in a while, pretty soon you find out you ain’t got one. Howard didn’t understand that and look how Junior turned out.”

Phil resists the urge to point out that he does not, in fact, have children, but something in Fury’s face tells Phil he’s got a snappy comeback all teed up, so he doesn’t. Instead, he stands and turns off his desk lamp, swinging his jacket over his shoulder and following Fury to the elevators.

 

Phil hears the party before he sees it, but he’s still not prepared for the faceful of confetti he gets, courtesy Dummy, when the elevator doors open on the 70th floor of Stark Tower. Thor’s on the coffee table, doing a modified Icky Shuffle while the others blow noisemakers at him—when they catch sight of Phil, they all holler his name, and Pepper hops up to greet him in a way that shows how little time it’s really been since she was a cheerleader at UC-Berkeley. Stark is DJ-ing, and when he sees Phil he switches tracks to “Secret Agent Man”. Phil genially flips him off and the cheers become delighted screams. Pepper, who is barefoot, comes up to kiss him on the cheek. “Welcome home, Phil,” she says, and the sentiment is echoed back in varying degrees of inebriation. He waves them all down, and Pepper trades him his coat for a beer.

“Did you know you still clean when you jump?” Phil says to her, loosening his tie.

“Oh, God, old habits die hard.”

“Go Golden Bears,” he tells her, and goes to stand next to Clint, who is, along with Banner, leafing through a massive stack of vinyl.

“I didn’t know Stark had anything analog,” Phil says, standing close enough to Clint that their elbows brush. “Hey,” he says quietly.

“Hey,” says Clint, just as quietly. He’s playing casual, but he’s blushing a little, too. 

“He doesn’t,” says Banner. “This is my collection.”

“Yours?” says Phil.

“Yeah, I, uh, had forgotten all about it. Left it in a storage locker when I left Culver and figured it’d been impounded with all my other stuff in the investigations.”

“It wasn’t?”

“Oh no, it was. ATF had it, then Defense Department, then SHIELD wound up with it, and then, uh…”

“Stark found it,” Clint says.

“Well, technically JARVIS was the one that found it, but seeing as JARVIS is my baby I’ll go ahead and take credit,” Stark says, joining the conversation. “But before we go any farther into what JARVIS has and hasn’t dug up about SHIELD, you’re not on the clock right now, are you, Agent?”

“Not any more,” Phil tells him. “You’re Maria Hill’s problem now,” and smiles at the face Stark pulls.

“In that case, yes, JARVIS found it, along with a truly disturbing amount of HYDRA crap, does Nick Fury have a Nazi fetish? I mean, I could kinda guess, what with all the black leather and the boots—”

“The HYDRA stuff is mine,” Phil says, just to watch Stark’s eyes widen.

“Ours,” Clint volunteers, and now it’s Phil’s turn to goggle. “Mine ‘n Tasha ‘n Phil’s.” 

“That’s right,” says Phil, turning back to Stark and smiling. “And it’s also classified. So, if I wanted to get your input on that situation, maybe get some help figuring out why we’re still finding newly manufactured HYDRA stuff in countries that the Nazis never invaded? I’d need to get you special clearance. And that’s not happening,” he says, picking up the record he’s chosen. “Until you change this song.” He hands the record to Stark, and oh, look, now it’s Stark’s turn to look surprised. Phil watches him beat a hasty retreat to the sound system and smiles. He’s going to like living here very much.

 

“So I didn’t know you and Pepper got along so well,” says Clint that night in Phil’s new quarters. They’re standing on opposite sides of the bed, tucking in sheets that don’t match but were top in the first box of bedding they found. Clint’s told Phil the living situation is only temporary until Stark can finish his plans, but this apartment is already nicer than anywhere Phil’s ever lived before. The rain is streaking over a view of Central Park that, even dark and soaking with orange sodium vapor lights, is beautiful. 

Phil blinks at Clint. “You dislike her?”

“Naw, it’s just.” Clint shrugs as he shakes out a comforter. “You know. Rich girl. Thinks she can buy everything. Guess she’s a good match for Stark that way.”

Now Phil’s really confused. “You don’t seem to have a problem moving in with him.”

“ ‘At’s different. Stark’s a fighter, he’s an Avenger, and the money’s just a tool for him, you can tell. He’d be trying to get us to hang out regardless ‘cause Daddy was an asshole and whatever, I get it. _She_ ,” and here Clint racks a pillow into its case with unnecessary force, “thinks she’s bettern all that. She comes from like, a normal fucking family with like, parents and two point five brothers’nsisters and a golden fucking retriever, and this is all very amusing to her, _we’re all_ very. Amusing to her. But I don’t think the money is amusing to Pepper fucking Potts, nu-uh,” Clint chuckles darkly as he punches the pillow down on the bed and moves to grab another.

“I’m pretty sure she loves Stark,” Phil says, though that’s not exactly a refutation to the point Clint seems to be making. He’s also pretty sure that they’re not talking about Pepper Potts.

 Clint’s eyes flicker up at Phil, back down to the pillow in his hands. “That’s sweet. Pardon me if I don’t believe that Miss Macon County Sweetheart is just over the moon for Stark’s charming personality.” Adjusts something invisible on the corner of the pillow. Looks back up, grimaces a smile. “Nah. She’s indulging him right now. She’s smart so she gives him leash. But wait’ll she sees an estimate for six fuckin’ floors of rebuild on the Tower. We’ll be out on the street in minutes.”

Phil’s not wild about this read on Pepper’s motives or intentions, and furthermore, he knows a couple of things about Pepper that Clint apparently doesn’t. First, that she is not Southern. (She is, in fact, from Connecticut. Like Phil.) Second, that she lost both mother and father to cancer (pancreatic and esophageal respectively) between her seventeenth and twenty-first birthdays; third, that she and her siblings do not speak; and this unbeatable hand of knowledge imparts a warm and righteous glow to the indignation Phil’s been feeling ever since Clint pronounced the word “normal” like it was synonymous with “ringworm”.

“You’re wrong about her,” he informs Clint flatly.

“Yeah, well, I don’t think I am, sir. Though I can see why _you’d_ think she was just peachy.”

“What’s that supposed to mean,” Phil says, feeling the tension climb from its usual roost in his chest to a higher perch in his face. He’s dimly aware—dimly—that he’s crossing the borderline between reasonable irritation and unfair anger, but being stabbed was like having the brake lines cut on his temper, and Clint is pushing every single one of his buttons and it’s been a long goddamn day and everything still hurts _goddamnit_.

Clint tosses the pillow on the bed, takes two long steps backwards towards the door, a roostery bounce in his walk that means serious beef in prison yards and high school hallways, but which Clint only ever uses when it’s time to get away. “You figure it out. I’m outta here.” And ducks out the door.

 

Natasha hears the gonging, battering din from several floors away, but it takes her a while to figure out that the strange, reverberating clangor is not coming from Tony’s lab or the street below, but is, in fact, Clint rope-climbing in the elevator shaft. She pries a set of doors open (her first prolonged conversation with JARVIS, and she has to convince him that her goal is neither suicide nor homicide) and peers up at Clint. “You’re being stupid,” she says.

“You don’t even know what I’m doing,” says Clint.

“You’ve Z-clipped your rope,” she points out. Clint looks up at his Quickdraw, sighs. Rappels down the fifteen or so feet to her level, rests his feet against the ledge. She reaches out, hooks a finger through his belt loop. “What am I going to do with you,” she says fondly.

“I dunno,” says Clint. “Use me for spare parts and cheap labor?” An old joke of theirs, but his eyes are tired and as she reaches out to caress his face they close.

“Coulson and you have a fight?”

“Mmm.”

“What about?”

Clint grunts.

“Did you walk out?”

Another grunt.

“Come in from there,” Natasha says, and steps away from the elevator shaft, turning and heading towards the office breakroom at the end of the hallway. The secret to getting anyone to follow you, including an angry sniper whose climbing routine you’ve just interrupted, is not to look back to confirm that they are following you. Natasha finds some Lipton in a cupboard and takes two cheap ceramic mugs from the towel near the sink, fills them with water, puts them in the microwave. Clint arrives behind her, annoyance rising from him like steam. She points to the tiny table. “Have a seat.” He does, and the microwave dings, and she serves him tea. His mug has a smiley face. Her mug has a picture of Staten Island on it. She sits across from him and drinks. Clint scowls for about five minutes, then pouts for another ten. Natasha sips her tea and waits. She can do this all night long. 

“If you’re gonna keep me from working out, at least say something to me. I’m getting bored here.”

She sets her mug down. “Why are you so afraid of Coulson?”

He blinks, the question clearly not computing. “I’m not _afraid_ of him.”

Natasha rises and in one fluid movement cuffs Clint across the side of the head. Sinks down into her chair again, sips her tea.

“—What—I’m _not_! What’re you, just gonna _hit_ me until I give you the answer you like?”

Natasha gives him a look over the rim of her mug, a don’t-be-a-big-baby look. Clint subsides back into his chair, grumbling and watching her warily. She sighs. Apparently she _is_ going to have to spell this one out.

“You are afraid of him, but not the way you think I mean. You are afraid of Coulson in the emotional sense, because of what he does to you.”

Clint laughs at that. “That’s rich, coming from you. Jesus, Tash, would you figure out what you want already? First you want me with Coulson, then you tell me he’s _doing things to me_. You want me to show you where the bad touch happened?”

“Did I say it was bad? And yes, I want you with him. I’ve wanted that all along. He’s good for you, _golubka_.”

Clint flinches. “Don’t call me that.”

“Why not?”

“Jus’ don’t. I can’t.” Clint looks away, his eyelids and jaw working overtime. She waits, lets him pull himself together. When he speaks, looking down into his tea, his voice is small. “I can’t hear you calling me that. It’s just.” He glances at her. “It’s too much. After, uh. Everything. It, uh… it does bad things to my head, and to yours too.”

Natasha swallows, trying to find breath around the sudden hurt that’s rising up to wrap around her throat. But Clint’s right, is the thing. It’s not fair of her to yank him around like this, not even with the best of intentions, not even if she’s trying to help. It seems she’s never done learning this particular lesson: back Clint into a corner, try to wrench some emotional admission from him, only to have him rise up and swat back, and he is right, and she’s the bully. She draws in a deep and ragged breath, looking for her exit, and she’s half-risen when he grabs for her wrist: “Wait, what? No, don’t go.”

She has to go. She doesn’t deserve to be around him right now. “I need to. Let me.”

“No, please, Natasha. I didn’t mean to hurt your—stay?”

But she’s already down the hall.

 

Stark Tower has plenty of punching bags. Natasha is two hours deep into her workout routine and is just beginning to silence the cacaphony in her mind when a noise pulls her out of it—she turns, dizzy and dripping, and sees Dr. Banner in the corner, hands in his pockets.

“I knew there had to be someone else awake at three AM,” he says. “Mind if I join you?”

“Knock yourself out,” says Natasha, rolling her neck and hopping to keep her pulse up.

Banner doesn’t comment on the pun as he takes off his glasses, climbs into the ring and braces himself against the heavy bag. “Go ahead. You looked like you could use some resistance.”

She peers around the side of the bag at him. “You sure you wanna stand there?”

“Yeah,” he says. “It helps me practice controlling my heart rate.”

Natasha shrugs, goes back to whaling on the bag. Banner offers neither congratulations on nor critique of her form, nor any conversation at all save the occasional grunt when she lands a particularly forceful blow. She’s grateful for the silence but growing bored with punching. “Mind if I shake things up a bit?” she asks after about fifteen minutes.

He shakes his arms out, tosses some sweat away from his face and returns to his braced position against the bag. “Go for it.”

Natasha backs up, finds her center, tenses her core. Studies the bag, then attacks, kicking and jabbing and dropping low, circling it like an opponent in a cage match (she hasn’t been in one of those for a long time now, but it’s not something you forget). Banner leans into his task, struggling to keep the increasingly unpredictable bag between himself and Natasha. She circles and watches, aims high and then low, glancing blows designed to shift the center of gravity and direction of spin, catch Banner off-guard. The only indication that she’s succeeding is the increasingly frantic scrabbling of his feet as he attempts to brace himself against the bag. When she finally knocks it loose from his arms after twenty minutes of hard work, he gives a little yelp, and she thinks he’ll be done for the night, but he simply gets back into position, hunkers down and firms up his grip. “Sorry. Go ahead.” She tilts her head at that, surprised. When no further commentary is forthcoming, she resumes. He’s harder to shake this time. After almost two hours, the room is sea-scented with sweat and hotter than hell, and the birds are just beginning to be drowned out by the garbage trucks of central Manhattan. Natasha strips her gloves and starts undoing the athletic wrap underneath. Banner, whose perspiration by this point has soaked through not only his hair and his shirt, but also (in several unbecoming patches) his khakis, steps away from the bag, breathing hard, and nods to her, blinking salt out of his eyes. “Thanks.”

She considers a few responses as she unwinds her wrist wraps: that he is a surprisingly inoffensive sparring partner; that his control is impressive; that he is permitted to join her again. In the end, she says none of these things; best to keep your thoughts to yourself when you’re learning an opponent. However, she does catch his eye on the way out of the ring (he holds the top rope up for her as she ducks through), and offers him the slightest of nods. He smiles back at her, and she feels his gaze, warm between her shoulderblades, as she gathers her things. He can’t see her face as she’s leaving, so it’s safe, she supposes, to smile. 

 

Phil’s about three hours into a fitful and unpleasant sleep when a widening crack of light at his bedroom door alerts him to Clint’s presence.

“Hey,” he says into the darkness.

That’s apparently enough to unstick Clint from his indecision; the younger man pushes off from the doorframe like a swimmer leaving the edge of the pool, peeling his t-shirt off with one fluid movement and crawling into bed next to Phil, coming to rest with his nose and lips pressed cool against Phil’s shoulder. “Sorry,” he murmurs.

“Mnh,” grunts Phil, looking up at the dark ceiling where phantasms of light swim. He learned pretty early on that verbal expressions of forgiveness (even commonplace, low-key ones like “Don’t worry about it”) are a bad idea when it comes to Clint. The psychology’s complicated, but it boils down to basically this: Phil is in love with a crazy redneck who only apologizes when chewing his own arm off isn’t an option. Should Clint ever offer you an apology, it’s best to act like you never even noticed the moment of unmanly weakness. So Phil just takes the moment and stores it up for later, and pretty soon Clint gives a contented little grunt and stretches his arm across Phil’s chest. His eyes are closed, and it’s not like he could see Phil’s face in this darkness anyway, so it’s safe, Phil supposes, to smile. 

 

 

 

His relief, as always, is short-lived.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE BE ADVISED: This chapter contains graphic descriptions of suicide (not by major characters) in a context which many may find deeply disturbing. It also contains memories (Clint's) of family violence culminating in murder. If you need more information to decide if this story is okay for you to read, please see the end notes; there are spoilers for the chapter there.

Phil wakes to the sound of shouting and footsteps. He jerks upright in bed amongst a blizzard of pillows and blankets, blinking hard. Clint is racing around the room, and there’s a klaxon-like alarm filling the air.  
  
“Fuhh?” Phil says, trying to free himself of the blankets.  
  
“It’s an assemble alert,” Clint says, flopping backwards on the bed to yank up his pants. “Avengers thing,” he explains, upside down. “It’s like an emergency.”  
  
“Fuck,” says Phil with feeling, lunging for his radio and his gun.  
  
“Woah woah woah,” says Clint. “You’re not going. You’re not an Avenger any more, ‘member?”  
  
Phil stares at him owlishly, buttoning his cuffs all wrong.  
  
“You’re babysitting the new Level Seven ducklings for SHIELD, remember?”  
  
Phil groans, but holsters his weapon and grabs his keys. “What time is it?”  
  
“Too early for this shit,” says Clint, before darting forward and kissing Phil on the lips, quickly. “See ya when we get back?” He jogs backwards towards the door, eyebrows raised.  
  
“Yeah,” says Phil, doing up his watchstrap and tucking his shirttail in and looking for his phone all at the same time—he’s two steps behind Clint as they hit the door, and the hallway is filled with half-dressed Avengers and yelling and JARVIS, but he sees the face Clint makes before he turns to run down the hallway, and it twists his heart right out of his chest. “Clint,” he blurts, without thinking, and Barton turns just as the elevator opens for Phil.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
Phil raises three fingers as the elevator doors close around him, mouths the words. Sees Clint’s eyes widen in surprise, sees his mouth echoing the words as the doors slide shut between them. _Scout’s honor._

 

  


47th Street, SHIELD’s Manhattan headquarters, is buzzing. By the time Phil hits the seventh floor, he’s heard a number of phrases he didn’t ever want to hear in a professional context: “highly contagious”, “nanotechnology”, “CDC consult”, and “building an army” among them.  
  
Melinda May pounces the moment he steps off the elevator: “At first we thought it was just a flash mob. Then they walked straight past the Today Show studios and didn’t even react to getting filmed, and that’s when we realized they weren’t operating under their own power.” She pulls out her phone and twists it sideways so he can get a look at the video which—of _course_ —has already hit YouTube. It shows a large crowd walking up West 49th, faces blank and eyes fixed forward, marching in lockstep. “Took the whole crowd of looky-loos waiting for Justin Bieber along with them. Apparently there’s quite a contagion range. Anyone they brush up against, clothing or skin, it infects. No incubation period at all, so that’s what has the CDC thinking it’s nanos.”  
  
“Not airborne?” Phil asks.  
  
‘We don’t think so,” says Simmons, appearing at his elbow. “Look, see her?” She takes Melinda’s phone, restarts the video, points to a bystander edging—but not quite touching—the crowd surrounding the Today Show’s window. When the not-a-flash-mob marches by, she takes one step back. Just one step, but now there’s a visible patch of sidewalk between her and anyone else—as the rest of the crowd turns and falls into step, peeling away from the windows and trampling the velvet ropes on their herdlike path up W 49th, she stays put, watching in apparent horror. “We’re still trying to find her,” Simmons says softly.  
  
“Keep looking,” Phil tells her, fishing his ringing phone from out of his pocket.  
  
“I need a favor!” Maria Hill hollers over the sound of rotor wash. “Can you get some barriers put up at the West end of 49th? I’d do it, but it’s in the DOT’s juris—”  
  
“On it,” Phil tells her. The last asshole Maria dated is in charge of the New York City Department of Transportation, and Phil and Maria have a longstanding mutual assistance pact regarding heinous exes, and the professional avoidance thereof. She calls the DOJ and ATF for him; he handles Transportation, anything and everything touching upon the Belgian consulate, and Boeing for her. It’s worked out well so far. “Can you see anything that we can’t from up there?”  
  
“Nothing,” hollers Maria. “Just a lotta people heading down a long street that ends in a lotta water.”  
  
“Got it,” says Phil. He never thought he’d need the phrase _human lemmings_ for a report, but that is clearly where this day is headed. “Keep in touch.” Maria hangs up, and his phone buzzes again before he can even get it back into his pocket. It’s a text from Clint. _human lemings what the fuck_.  
  
Phil smiles, types back: _Indeed. Don’t let anyone brush up against them. Possibly nanos, very contagious._  
  
Clint comes right back: _10-4. Then, a second later, wait nanotech rly? thougt that was madeup_  
  
Phil texts back: _Until this morning, so did I. Welcome to a brave new world._  
  
Clint is quiet for a long time, during which Phil assumes he is probably jumping off a tall building or goading the Hulk or eating triglycerides. Underneath that thought, the darker worry that maybe Clint has gotten a _really good_ look at the Borg/Lemming/Flashmob From Hell and is busy having a panic attack or a flashback or something. No one’s mentioned anything to Phil about PTSD, but then again they might just be assuming he’s been read in on Clint’s file post-Loki. He hasn’t. He’s been trying to respect Clint’s mental privacy. (Another reason he can’t be Clint’s boyfriend and his handler at the same time.) His phone buzzes. _Stark says ur too literate for ur one good. hes just mad cuz he didnt invent nanolemings._  
  
Phil blinks at Clint’s idiosyncratic spelling, even as he can feel the smile splitting his face wide. Across the room, Skye elbows Simmons hard in the ribs, prompting an “oof” from Simmons. Phil looks straight at Skye, catching her in the actual act of _pointing and whispering_. Good God, it’s amateur hour.  
  
“All right, people,” he says, sliding his phone into his pocket and straightening up. “We have one close eyewitness to find, about three hundred people and climbing to stop before they drown themselves in the Hudson, and a possible invasion of contagious nanobots. Who can identify the most crucial and pressing concern?”  
  
“Uh, the possible drowning victims?” Skye volunteers in a tone that comes with its own eyeroll.  
  
“Well-meaning but incorrect, anyone wanna take a stab at two out of three?”  
  
“It’s the nanobots,” says Ward quietly, and Phil awards him a mental star.  
  
“Why’s that?”  
  
“Because we don’t know if they’re nanobots,” says Ward, fidgeting as all the eyes in the room turn towards him. “They could be a parasite or a fungus or a virus of some kind with a much faster gestation period than anything we’ve ever seen. They could be some kind of alien bug. They might not be the only swarm, either. We don’t know if they’re a lone experiment gone wrong, or the first volley in a coordinated terrorist attack, or the beginning of another alien invasion. We don’t know what we don’t know, sir,” Ward says, visibly uncomfortable at having to address Phil Coulson directly on the subject of alien warfare. “And what we don’t know could make us unprepared for something much bigger than three hundred people.”  
  
“That’s right,” says Phil. “And until we know what we’re dealing with, we’re flying blind. So: May, you take Sky and Ward and start knocking on some doors in nanotechnology. Start with the local universities and fan out. Fitz, you and Simmons go talk to the CDC and find out what they think the smartest way to herd these folks is and start implementing it. You can keep looking for our close witness,” Phil says as Simmons opens her mouth to protest, “but back burner. Talk to the CDC first. I know it doesn’t look like a virus but if it turns out to be one I’d rather not have to quarantine all of Manhattan.” Simmons’ mouth closes and she nods. “I’m going to go talk to some contacts in the mutant community. I expect checkins only when you’ve learned something worth learning. Keep your radios on but stay off the bandwidth unless you’ve got something life-or-death to communicate. Now go!”  
  
The team scatters and Phil dials Westchester, always an unnerving experience because he never knows who’s going to answer the ancient black Bakelite phone that sits in the center of the school’s hallway. (Xavier has some old-fashioned feelings regarding the phone and its place in a civilized society, feelings Phil can’t help thinking might be different if Xavier didn’t already know what everyone around him was thinking.) He first gets a very young girl, maybe seven or eight, who doesn’t self-identify ( _so they **are** teaching them something up there_ ) and who very politely asks his name and message and carefully repeats both back with an adorable lisp before passing the phone to someone who may have been adorable once, for about five seconds, before the umbilical cord was cut, but Phil wouldn’t bet money on it.  
  
“This’d better be good,” Logan growls into the phone.  
  
“Professor Logan,” Phil says, pressing the button for the elevator. “Phil Coulson, of SHIELD.”  
  
“I know,” Logan says, and Phil hears him suck thoughtfully on the ever-present cigar (unlit, because the School is the only building on earth Logan won’t smoke in). “Thought you were a shish kabob.”  
  
This, coming from Logan, is the equivalent of a welcome-back parade. With tickertape. Phil can feel himself getting all choked up, really he can. “Nope,” he says.  
  
“Mnngh,” says Logan. Then, maneuvering the cigar to the other corner of his mouth, “What can I do for you, Agent?”  
  
“You can tell me if the mutant community is aware of anyone who can make people do _this_ ,” Phil says, and sends the video to the cell Logan keeps on him at all times (because not smoking indoors is one thing, but waiting in a hallway to use a public phone like a prisoner is another thing entirely). He waits. Gets on the elevator. Listens to Logan mauling the cigar, the tinny shrieks of the far-off-people in the crummy video, the noise of the Academy in the background.  
  
Logan finally grunts. “Only about five hundred.”  
  
“That’s what I was afraid of,” says Phil, and Logan gives a snort that’s almost friendly. But then he follows it up with: “You know the surprising thing about those five hundred or so people, Agent?” and even as Phil hears himself saying, “What?” he knows he’s stepped right into the trap. Stupid, stupid, _stupid_.  
  
“None of ‘em are mutants,” says Logan, and sets the phone back in the cradle.  
  
Phil holds the phone to his ear for just a moment more, long enough to give his head a soothing thwack against the elevator wall, then hangs up and schools his face back into neutrality just in time for the doors to open. Good thing too, because Nick Fury is standing right there.  
  
“Human. Lemmings.” Fury says.  
  
“Yessir,” he says, stepping back into the elevator as Fury gets in. Looks like he won’t be leaving HQ for a while yet. “Apparently they took a sizeable chunk of the audience away from Justin Bieber.”  
  
“Always a silver lining,” Fury says as the doors close. 

 

  


“So what I’m thinking,” continues Tony, and Natasha shoots Clint an amused look, “Is we need a containment area.”  
  
“No shit, Stark,” says Clint, because he will never _not_ take an opportunity to sound smarter than Tony Stark. It comes along more often than people might guess. “Got any idea on how we might proceed with that?”  
  
“Working on that,” says Tony, and cocks his head as he hovers above the marching herd, his repulsors making the air around him all shimmery. He’s been darting around like a dragonfly for the last three blocks, supposedly providing escort and deterring passersby from touching the infected, but really just drawing more attention and onlookers, three of whom have already joined the herd. Clint and Natasha, overhead in the Quinjet with the rest of the Avengers, are awaiting orders and burning a lot of unnecessary jetfuel in slow flight, but then again so are the six SHIELD helicopters flying above them in pointless formation. It’s like a very slow and creepy Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Clint’s phone buzzes and he takes it out, squinting at the screen while juggling the Quinjet’s controls with one hand. It’s Coulson.  
  
 _Mutants stumped_ , it says.  
  
Clint thumbs over the screen, trying to type back one-handed until Natasha makes a disgusted sound and switches controls over to make Clint the co-pilot and herself the primary. _Thanks_ , Clint mouths to her, and she rolls her eyes eloquently.  
  
 _how about the fantastic 4_ , he types back, because he doesn’t have a problem with them the way Stark seems to, and because having Reed Richards show up on the scene would be a pretty good way to rain on Stark’s—literal—parade. Clint’s not sure why pissing up Stark’s leg is sounding so good today, he just knows that it is. And if years of Mac attacks have taught Clint anything, it’s that cravings don’t go away until you give in to them. There’s a long pause and Clint refocuses on the scene ahead, squints at the golden light flashing off the buildings, notes the distance to go before water becomes an issue (about a mile). Maybe about eighteen minutes away, if the crowd keeps up its current pace.  
  
 _They’re on vacation, apparently_ , Coulson eventually texts back. _Turks and Caicos._  
  
Clint snorts. _didnt kanye take kim there once?_ he asks, because it’s nice knowing the exact face Phil is making at his phone across the city.  
  
 _You horrify me_ , Phil texts back, and Clint feels his chest get all warm.  
  
“Uh. guys?” Stark says over the comms. “I think I have an idea.” 

Stark’s idea isn’t terrible. With JARVIS doing the advance scouting, he’s discovered an underpass which can be blocked off from both ends and used as a containment unit until the CDC figures out what the hell they’re dealing with. “If we can move some traffic barriers and create a funnel, we should be able to cram ‘em all in there no problem,” he says over the comms, sniffing slightly. “Sending pictures… now.”  
  
Pictures of the underpass pop up on everyone’s cell simultaneously. Clint takes a look. Yup. Underpass.  
  
“Yeah, just one problem,” Banner speaks up from the back. “What if they get in there and they don’t stop walking?”  
  
“What, you mean like a stampede?”  
  
“I mean like crushing, yes.”  
  
Stark’s quiet for a second. “We try and get the Bieber fans to the front of the crowd?”  
  
Bruce sighs heavily.  
  
“All right, all right. I’ll fly down to IKEA, see if they can give us some mattresses or something. Thor buddy, wanna see what your people have been up to for the last eight hundred years or so? Give you a hint, furniture is involved.”  
  
“Vikings, Swedes, difference,” Natasha says as Thor looks perplexed.  
  
“Potato, potahto. You coming, buddy?”  
  
“Indeed,” says Thor, standing. “Lady Natasha, would you kindly open your rear gate?”  
  
“On it,” Natasha says, not quite loud enough to cover Stark’s choking noise over the comms, and Thor’s gone in a whirlwind of cape and crackling ozone.  
  
“Will that work?” says Steve.  
  
“What, Stark and Thor in IKEA?” says Clint. “No, but I want pictures.”  
  
“No, the mattress idea,” says Steve. “Seems to me like if they just keep walking they’ll end up suffocating each other in the mattresses.”  
  
“Don’t worry,” says Natasha. “By the time we get there, Stark will have had five better ideas and put six of them into play.” Clint looks sideways at her, because _what_ and _since when_ , and she looks coolly ahead, not giving him anything to go on. He readjusts his grip on the controls and glares into the bright sunlight, noting for professional reasons the SHIELD copter at one o’clock whose pilot has left the fueling cap open. He hates flying in formation, especially with assclowns like these. Natasha purses her lips and stares off down the cavern of midtown, and oh look, here comes Maria Hill on the comms.  
  
“Q299, do you copy?”  
  
“Yeah, I copy,” says Clint.  
  
“You see this asshole with his fuel cap open?” Maria says, and Clint chuckles. “Yeah, I see it.”  
  
Maria comes back on, and it takes Clint a second to notice that her voice is _really_ tense.  
  
 _“Good eye, Q299.”_  
  
Clint leans forward, Natasha does too, and the Quinjet gets quiet for a few seconds as they both just… look at the dark grey copter, all the markings and numbers, the rotors and blades and the crew inside.  
  
“Natasha,” Clint mutters under his breath.  
  
“Yeah, I’m seeing this,” she mutters back.  
  
“What’s going on?” Captain Rogers says, appearing behind Natasha’s seat, and Banner stands as well, considerately centering himself so as not to throw off the Quinjet’s handling if he hulks out. Clint thumbs his comm to mute and motions the others to do the same. He doesn’t know if the crew of the fuel-cap copter can hear him or not, but it’s a very bad sign that Maria Hill isn’t going ballistic like she would if she were sure they _weren’t_ on the frequency.  
  
“See that copter right there?” he says. “That isn’t one of ours.”  
  
Steve ducks to look up and out the windshield. “It looks like SHIELD’s.”  
  
“Someone went to a lot of trouble to make it look like one of ours,” says Natasha. “But it isn’t.”  
  
“How can you tell?” Bruce says, his tone more curious than skeptical.  
  
“See the number they’ve put on the tail?” Natasha says, pointing down to one of the herd members, her whole body language directing away from the suspicious copter—a move which baffles Rogers but which Banner plays along with perfectly, following her arm with his body while his eyes stay locked on the SHIELD-copter-which-isn’t. “SHIELD copters always follow a pattern. First two letters are the home base for that particular copter. BE, that’s Bern, ND is New Delhi, SO is Soweto, so on and so forth. There’s thirteen bases that keep helicopters, but the only one that makes any sense at all for this group is PA. That’s Paramus, New Jersey. If you’ll look at all the other copter numbers in this group they’ll start with PA. But this one is PE.”  
  
“Where’s that?” says Bruce.  
  
“Peshawar,” say Clint and Natasha simultaneously.  
  
“Let me guess,” says Steve. “SHIELD hasn’t got a base in Peshawar.”  
  
“Good guess, Cap, but they do,” says Natasha. “Problem is, we don’t keep or service copters there. All that’s in Peshawar is a Jeep refueling station.”  
  
“Which is now compromised,” Bruce says.  
  
“Possibly, though if they’d seen it in person they’d know we didn’t keep copters there.” Natasha keeps her body language aimed at the street below, but her eyes never leave the false copter. Clint concentrates on keeping the Quinjet slow and steady.  
  
“So what do we do?” Steve says, and Natasha falls silent, warily watching the false copter as they churn slowly down 49th.  
  
Clint clears his throat. “Well, we need to make the others in the formation aware of the intruder if they haven’t snapped to it already. Hill was sounding cagey, so we gotta assume that our radio frequency could be compromised.”  
  
“What about cell phone signals?” says Bruce. “Think they’re reading our texts?”  
  
Clint thinks about it. “Only one way to find out.” He pulls out his cell and types to Coulson: _you remember all those rustedout copters in peshawar?_ He tucks the cell back in his pocket, his eyes glued to the false copter, and immediately has to fish it back out again as Coulson responds.  
  
 _refresh my memory hawkeye._  
  
Good old Coulson. Never has to be prompted for a counterfeit memory twice.  
  
 _glad im not riding in the rehhabbed one they got here_ , types Clint; hits send; waits to see if the false copter wavers or breaks formation or looks in any way like it’s catching the conversation. Nothing happens, and everyone in the Quinjet lets out a sigh of relief, and just then the false copter banks and makes the steepest turn Clint’s ever seen, tearing away southbound on 8th Avenue, and the comms erupt in chaos as the herd of human lemmings turns on a collective dime and _sprints_ off down 8th, following the false copter like greyhounds following a rail rabbit.  
  


“WHAT THE FUCK IS—”  
  
“DID YOU JUST SEE THAT—”  
  
“CHOPPER PAPA ECHO NINE SEVEN SEVEN IS _NOT_ SHIELD I REPEAT IS _**NOT**_ SHIELD—” Maria Hill’s voice cuts through the screaming as Clint hastily pulls on his seat restraints and flicks his comm back to active.  
  
“Q299 is going in pursuit,” Natasha informs Maria as she turns up the burners a bit. “Better strap in back there, boys,” and the Quinjet bucks like a bull as she wheels the tail around and scoots down 8th after the false chopper. 

 

  


47th Street now resembles a hornets’ nest that has been clipped down, shaken, and kicked for a field goal before being set on fire. With no one definitively sure which communications systems have been compromised and which haven’t, everyone is forced to get updates the civilian way—via television. Old sets have been yanked out of drawers, rabbit ears set atop filing cabinets, every set tuned to CNN, where the suddenly energized pack of human lemmings is now bounding down 8th Ave in real time, looking like nothing so much as… well, Phil never thought he’d need the phrase _runner zombies_ for a report, but that is clearly where this day is headed. On CNN, he can see the Quinjet following the false chopper at a safe but _interested_ distance—gratifyingly, no one appears to be shooting at anyone just yet. Shooting before ten in the morning always gives Phil a headache.  
  
“No one’s started shooting yet,” Fury says at Phil’s elbow.  
  
“No, sir.”  
  
“Good. I like it when people don’t start shooting.”  
  
“Me too, boss,” says Phil, and then they see the bright red-gold flash of Iron Man, streaking across the television screen as he catches up to his team.  
  
Fury sighs. “Well, there goes that moment.” 

  


  


“Well _that_ got lively,” Stark says over his comm. “Fill me in?” It takes a couple of moments of silence and Clint can see Stark tilting his head in a quizzical fashion, probably asking JARVIS why his comm isn’t working, before he gets the bright idea to _look in the Quinjet’s cockpit_ , where Clint is frantically signaling to him, holding up his earpiece and waving a “no-no” finger while mouthing the word “COMPROMISED” through the glass. He has no idea how much Stark can actually lip-read (Clint only learned because his hearing’s kinda shitty in one ear and Tasha gets really impatient with having to repeat herself), but Stark blasts off like a second later and starts making all these crazy loops around and ahead of the false copter, scoping out the territory ahead.  
  
“I hope he doesn’t start shooting from up there,” Natasha grumbles. “We’ll fly straight into the explosion if he does.”  
  
“He better not start shooting, period,” Clint says. “Fury’ll kill him if he drops a chopper on our little lemming herd.”  
  
“They’re people, not lemmings,” Steve points out, and Clint doesn’t have to look sideways to know what kind of face Natasha’s making.  
  
“Right now,” Bruce says from where he’s hunched over his laptop, “They might be more like remote controlled cars than anything else. If this is nanotech, then they might just be following a simple short-range radio signal from the chopper.”  
  
Steve considers this. “The kind of signal that could be disrupted by a thunderstorm?”  
  
Banner chuckles. “Worth a shot.”  
  
“Just one problem,” says Clint. “Does anyone know where Thor is?”  
  
“Well, Stark probably does,” says Steve, and they all take a moment to silently watch Iron Man twirling as he scoots up the face of the Westin, which he is apparently using as a mirror.  
  
“What’re the odds of getting him back in the jet?” Bruce muses out loud.  
  
“Not good,” says Clint, watching Stark skimming down the face of the Intercontinental on the other side of the street, doing what appears to Clint to be…. “Hey, is that a pirouette?” he asks Natasha, just to fuck with her and because she’s got this **hilarious** past with ballet. She gives him a who-are-you-and-what-have-you-done-with-Clint look, and he makes a kissy face right back at her. “ _All_ the secrets of the sisterhood,” he reminds her.  
  
“Okay, so without Thor,” Steve doggedly continues, herding them back on track. “How do we disrupt that signal? If it is a signal?”  
  
“We could try to run them into a power line,” says Clint, because sometimes it’s better to get the dumb ideas out there so the smart ideas can breathe. “But then we run the risk of dropping them on the lem—the herd,” he says.  
  
Natasha nods. “We could try to squeeze between them and the herd, then slowly force them up. See if we can get them out of range, however far that is.”  
  
“Can they force us to crash?” Bruce asks, because he’s a cheerful and positive-thinking guy like that.  
  
Natasha shrugs, looks at Clint. “It never came up in class.”  
  
“I crashed once,” Steve volunteers. “Wasn’t fun.”  
  
There’s silence for a moment as they consider the options.  
  
“So, just following along and seeing what they do, then?”  
  
“Yep.”  
  
“Sounds good.”  
  
“Fine by me.” 

 

 

“I found our witness,” Simmons says in lieu of greeting or self-identification, which is great but kind of pointless on a possibly compromised cell system. “I’m bringing her in.”  
  
“What about the consultation?” Phil asks.  
  
“The other half’s got that,” says Simmons. She sounds breathless. “But _I’ve got our witness!_ ”  
  
“Congratulations,” Phil says, because clearly Simmons wasn’t hugged enough as a child. “ETA?”  
  
“Coming in the building now,” Simmons says, sounding smug, and Phil drops the phone and curses as he runs for the front door, intercepting Simmons and a shaken-looking blonde in a floral-print dress.  
  
“Agent Simmons, _escort your witness back outside_ ,” he demands, pointing out the door.  
  
Simmons looks shocked. “But she didn’t touch the mob—”  
  
Phil doesn’t have time to argue. He yanks a garbage can liner off a nearby custodial cart and, using it as a guard for his hands, grabs both Simmons and her witness by the shoulder, firmly escorting them back out the door, down the front steps, and over to the side alleyway, where he backs them into the little alcove created by two dumpsters. “I need a portable decontamination unit here!” he hollers over his shoulder at a field agent, who nods and rushes back into the building.  
  
Simmons, confused, reaches out towards Phil, a laughingly reassuring tone in her voice: “No, Agent Coulson, you don’t understand—”  
  
Phil takes one giant step backwards as he pulls out his taser and aims it straight at Simmons, who freezes, looking confused. The witness at least has the good sense not to move—or is too paralyzed with fear to move. She trembles like a rabbit but stands in place.  
  
"No, you don’t understand, Agent Simmons,” Phil says. “You’ve watched a woman on a video screen come into close if not physical contact with members of an infected population. You don’t know if the infection is comprised of nanobots, though you’ve got just enough information to make an educated guess. That’s the most dangerous amount of information to have. This could also be airbourne or Asgardian or fungal or pherenomal in nature, and what you really don’t understand—DON’T MOVE, AGENT, OR I WILL TASE YOU—is that this woman _may be an immune carrier and still capable of passing on the contagion._ She might be part of the problem, not part of the solution, and by _bringing her into a SHIELD location_ , you’ve helped ensure that’s so. Do you understand now?”  
  
Simmons’s lips are trembling but she keeps her chin up—a good sign, sticking-wise. “Yes, sir.”  
  
Phil gentles his voice, and lowers his taser fractionally. “Do you understand why I can’t let either of you touch anyone or anything until we decontaminate you?”  
  
She nods and steps backwards, her eyes brimming. Phil holsters his taser, making a mental note to apologize to Simmons later, possibly through the medium of stuffed animals. Aloud, he says, “Good. Step back against the wall.” As black-jacketed agents swarm around Simmons and her witness, setting up the plastic sheeting for the portable decontamination unit, Phil takes the opportunity to casually glance over at the witness. Her face is drawn and white, and she’s chewing on the inside of her cheek; she doesn’t look at him. He turns away and goes back inside the building, grabbing the first SHIELD medic he can find. “Do me a favor,” he says.

 

Once they’re past Port Authority, Stark starts acting… strange… er. He keeps darting in front of the rogue copter, forcing it to slow down, though it keeps churning doggedly down 8th Avenue. As they go, something catches Clint’s eye, a dark patch on the street that grows in size as they approach it. It’s about three blocks out, but it looks like… “Hey, Cap, what’s that look like to you?” he says.  
  
Steve leans forward between the pilots’ seats. “That looks like a bunker,” he says.  
  
Natasha leans forward. “That looks like a funnel for our herd.” Clint follows her gaze and, indeed, someone has set up concrete traffic barriers in a narrowing funnel shape, leading into the mouth of the bunker, which now that Clint’s closer he can see it’s been made out of yet more concrete traffic barriers, stacked like Lincoln Logs.  
  
Bruce sticks his head up behind Steve. “That looks like Thor,” he says, and as they get closer, they see that indeed it is Thor, grinning gigantically and waving his arms in a clear Welcome To My Bunker, It Is A Very Fine Bunker gesture to the herd, who march obediently down the middle of the funnel and disappear into the darkness of the bunker, where Clint sincerely hopes they are not suffocating in mattresses. The rogue copter rises to pass over the roof of the bunker and keeps rising to about three stories up, where it just… hovers. Stark circles it, slowly, and Clint maneuvers the Quinjet around to circle it from a slightly skew angle, so if they have to fire he won’t be at cross-purposes with Stark.  
  
“Dr. Banner, we might be about to do some very stressful things,” Clint says.  
  
Banner, who is already unlacing his shoes and standing to toe them off, sighs. “I was just thinking so. Would you mind letting me out the back?”  
  
Natasha looks over her shoulder. “We can let you out on the ground.”  
  
“That won’t be necessary,” says Banner, unbuttoning his cuffs. “Anything less than five stories is just a hop to the other guy. But thank you.” He folds his shirt neatly and places it on top of his shoes.  
  
Steve pulls his cowl down over his eyes. “Mind if I hitch a piggyback ride?” he asks Banner.  
  
“Not at all.”  
  
“What do you plan to do once you’re down there?” Natasha asks.  
  
“Not sure,” says Steve. “But Thor might need a hand with those people. Either way I can’t do much good in here.”  
  
“Fair enough,” Natasha says, and opens the back gates. For a moment there’s a great influx of fresh cool air, and then a roar as Banner-becoming-Hulk falls, and then the gates whooshes shut again.  
  
Clint cranes forward as the Quinjet circles. “They’ve landed fine,” he informs Natasha, who is checking ammo levels.  
  
“Mmm,” she grunts in return, her non-committal tone like a great big brass band to Clint, playing a rousing tune called Yes I Care, Mention It And Die.  
  
“You have as bad a feeling about this as I do?” he says, changing the subject.  
  
“Yes,” she says.  
  
“Good. Glad to know I’m not the only one.”  
  
“You’re not,” she says.  
  
“No comms, no clue who the hell we’re dealing with, total lack of objectives or orders or any kind of communication from above…”  
  
“Classic worst-case scenario,” she agrees.  
  
“Wish Coulson was still managing us,” he says, and she gives him a look. “What, I’m just saying.”  
  
She doesn’t dignify that with a response, instead leaning forward and looking up through the windshield to where Maria Hill’s helicopter, along with the five other real SHIELD copters, are circling like massive black vultures over 575 and 579 8th Avenue, respectively. “I can’t see it if they’re trying to communicate with us,” she says.  
  
“Maybe they’re hoping the bad guys’ll run out of fuel first,” says Clint, and Natasha chuckles.  
  
“Speaking of which,” she says, checking the fuel level, “That’s not going to happen.”  
  
“What, them running out of fuel before us?”  
  
She nods grimly.  
  
“How much more we got?”  
  
“Fifty minutes at this rate, less if we have to turn the burners up.”  
  
“Shit.”  
  
Natasha stares deep into the cockpit of the hovering copter, at the reflective sunglasses of the expressionless crew of the false copter. This time it’s her who says it. Their old refrain.  


“Who _are_ those guys?”

 

 

“Sir? Could you tell me why you made me sneak up on and sedate a witness?” The SHIELD medic, whose name is Wojiwicz, is kneeling next to Phil as Phil roots around—very carefully, with gloved hands—inside the woman’s mouth.  
  
Coulson frowns as he leans in close, takes a good hard look. Yep. Exactly what he’d thought. “Take a good look at that back molar,” he says, pulling aside her cheek and letting Wojiwicz crane in.  
  
“Looks like a filling, sir,” says Wojiwicz, but then he leans in closer. “A…. really weird, plasticy filling.”  
  
“See what’s under it?” Phil says.  
  
“Yeah… looks kinda dark.”  
  
“Go on.”  
  
Wojiwicz glances up, trying to tell if he’s being punked. “Sir. Is this really real?”  
  
“Yep.”  
  
“That’s a suicide pill.”  
  
“Yep.”  
  
“She was trying to break a tooth and get to her suicide pill.”  
  
“Fraid so. You just saved this woman’s life.”  
  
“ _Cool_ ,” says Wojiwicz, tilting the witness’s head back to get a better look.  
  
“I doubt she’ll thank you for it,” said Phil. “Be careful, it could still shatter. We don’t know how close she got to breaking it before you darted her.”  
  
Wojiwicz sits back, thinks hard. “But sir. Suicide pills… I thought they stopped using those in the forties.”  
  
Phil stands, peels off his gloves. “We thought they stopped doing a lot of things in the forties,” he says. “Keep her sedated and under heavy guard until we can find someone who’s really good with a pair of pliers to get that thing out of her.” Then he turns on his heel and goes to find Simmons, who is still breathing into a paper bag after the dual shock of A) a very cold decontamination shower and B) the sudden sedation by dart of the witness next to her, a woman whom she’d apparently been having a pleasant chat with on the walk up to SHIELD headquarters. Phil steps up to her and she lays the paper bag aside with trembling fingers.  
  
“Break’s over,” he tells her, not unkindly but not particularly softly either. It’s a tough balance to strike. Too much kindness right now and Simmons will allow herself to collapse. Too little and she won’t have a choice. Phil gives her a goal instead: “Your witness is involved. She was trying to break open a suicide pill to avoid giving us information. We’re not going to let that happen. You’re going to find me a way to get this information to the rest of SHIELD and the Avengers without using compromised systems. Understand?”  
  
She nods shakily and stands up, smoothing her clothing down. “Understood, sir. Sorry about the… lack of thinking with the witness—”  
  
“Don’t worry about it,” Phil cuts her off. “You brought us the witness, we’ll fine-tune your procedure later. Now I need your mind focused on finding us a secure communications system. You got that?”  
  
She nods.  
  
“Good. Go.”  
  
She goes upstairs, and Phil pivots, grabbing three more medics and a whole handful of trash bags from the custodial cart. “Guys, come with me. Let’s bag a spy.” 

 

 

“I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with… A,” Clint singsongs, ignoring the murderous look Natasha is throwing at him. She always acts like she doesn’t like this game for the first few rounds—then her competitive spirit kicks in and she starts naming things in Russian and Czech and Romanian, which is _just not fair_ but which does keep Clint on his toes, language-wise. She is quiet for a few minutes, and Clint thinks she’s not going to play with him at all, but then she brightens.  
  
“Avenger!” she says, watching Tony whiz by.  
  
It’s not the word Clint was thinking of, but it _is_ the person he was thinking of, so he nods. “Yep. Your turn.”  
  
“OK, something begin—”  
  
“Unh-uh,” Clint says. “You have to say the rhyme. Whole thing. ‘S a rule.” He tries to hide his grin as Natasha sighs in exasperation, because while he doesn’t really **want** to get smacked on the arm, he loves pushing her to the point where smacks are kind of inevitable.  
  
“ _Fine_ ,” she says. “I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with… M.”  
  
Clint leans forward and sees Maria Hill leaning out from the door of one of the high-up SHIELD copters, waving.  
  
“It’s Maria,” he says, “And I think she’s trying to signal us.”  
  
“No, really?” Natasha says, in her snottiest voice. Without looking away from Maria, Clint licks his right index finger, reaches over, and sticks it in Natasha’s ear. She squirms and wriggles and shrieks, making quite the show of disgust, and Clint sure hopes it’s keeping the crew of the false copter distracted as he watches Maria signal, because hand-signaled Morse Code is hard enough to read at close range, but looking up into a bright midday sky at a hand several hundred feet away with a chopper rotor behind it occluding the patterns…. well, let’s just say it’s difficult and leave it at that.  
  
“Dit dit dah… dit dah dit dit,” he mutters to himself, letters forming in his mind as Natasha wriggles and jiggles next to him, now pretending to have dropped something on the floor of the Quinjet and doing the old bend-over-cleavage trick which shouldn’t work on anyone as well as it’s apparently working on the pilot of the false copter hovering in front of them. Iron Man, whizzing in circles slightly below them, has also apparently noticed Maria—he’s lying on his back as he coasts, looking up, and Clint can just bet JARVIS is zeroed in on Maria’s hand, crunching the code for Stark. That whole HUD display thingy must be awful nice, being able to zoom in on anything you want to without having to deal with distraction or dust or glare…. and now Clint’s lost the pattern, shit, and he focuses back in on Maria’s hand just in time to catch the last few letters.  
  
“ _Shit_ ,” he says, this time aloud, and Tasha pops back up, flipping her hair in truly dramatic fashion just as Maria’s arm disappears back inside the SHIELD chopper.  
  
“Shit what?” she says.  
  
“Shit it’s bigger than we thought,” says Clint. “This might be HYDRA.” 

 

 

“Welcome back,” Phil says in his most pleasant and non-threatening voice, which is also his most threatening voice.  
  
The woman in the floral dress, seated across from Phil at the interrogation table to which she is cuffed, blinks woozily. A lump in her right cheek testifies to the wad of cotton the SHIELD dentist jammed in there after extracting the molar containing the poison pill. (Well. They’re calling him a dentist. Really he’s a bomb disposal expert, but when it comes to removing tiny components from tight spaces _very carefully_ , a bomb disposal expert is actually preferable to a dentist. Dentists don’t have to worry about being blown up. Much.)  
  
“We saved your life,” Phil points out. “You can thank us for that later. Right now we’d like you to tell us more about the herd of human lemmings we’ve caught in a traffic barrier on 8th Avenue.”  
  
The woman looks around blearily, tries to move her hands. Seems surprised by the cuffs, wavers, then tries to move again a few seconds later, like she’s forgotten the cuffs are even there. A long trail of drool slowly exits her mouth from the corner.  
  
“Okay,” says Phil. He calls over his shoulder. “Wojiwicz, how much did you give her?”  
  
“Sorry, sir. Some people just cannot handle their horse tranquilizer,” gripes Wojiwicz, coming in with his little kit and selecting a needle. “Some adrenaline oughtta wake her up.”  
  
“Be careful,” Phil says. “We don’t need her aggressive, just awake.”  
  
“I’m always careful, sir,” says Wojiwicz, eyes focused on the needle he’s prepping. Then he hauls off and jams it into her heart. 

 

 

“Unnnggh,” Bruce says, blinking woozily. He’s come back to in a dark, underground room which smells like a gym at high noon. Cap and Thor are standing on either side of him, and he’s looking at… well, it looks an awful lot like a gym, too. There are upwards of a hundred treadmills jammed into the space under the concrete roof, and there are three and four people crammed onto every treadmill, jogging at identical paces, eyes fixed forward. It’s one of the weirdest things Bruce has ever woken up to see, and he once woke up in an Argentinian casino on Easter. “Are those…?”  
  
“Those are treading mills!” Thor announces proudly. “Friend Stark had a fine idea to prevent these ensorcelled souls from crushing themselves against our barriers. We built it in much haste!”  
  
“We?” Bruce asks, and then he sees the fifteen or so Gold’s Gym employees huddling against the opposite wall, their eyes huge and fixed on him. They’re all wearing black and gold polo shirts and are all soaked in sweat. He gives a weak little wave. “Hi, guys.”  
  
Some of them wave back. One of the employees slowly raises his cell phone and takes a picture. The flash causes a minor panic amongst the other employees, who all jump and hiss at the guy who took the picture. He hisses something back that Bruce can’t hear over the din of the treadmills and then they’re all snapping at each other, the apparent threat forgotten. He sighs and turns to Cap.  
  
“Did I hurt anyone when I landed?”  
  
“Nope,” says Steve. “Smooth drop, buddy,” and pats Bruce on the shoulder, and that’s when Bruce realizes he isn’t wearing any…. he looks down. It’s a cape. That’s a cape, and it’s bright red, and he’s… well, swaddled is the unavoidable term. He is swaddled in another man’s cape. He looks over at Thor, who beams proudly at him. This is his life now.  
  
“Thanks, Thor.”  
  
Thor lays a beefy hand on his other shoulder, and Bruce tries not to mind that his knees buckle a little. “You are welcome, friend.” 

 

 

“YEARRRGGH! AAAAHHH! WHAT IS THIS! GETITOUTGETITOUTGETITOUT!”  
  
 _“Was that really necessary, Wojiwicz?”  
  
“FUCK YEAH ADRENALINE! WOO!! PULP FICTION, BABY! I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO DO THAT!”  
  
“Wojiwicz.”_  
  
“GET IT OUT OF ME! GETITOUT!”  
  
 _“Wojiwicz! Get ahold of yourself!”_  
  
“OK, what is going on in here—IS THAT A MOTHERFUCKING NEEDLE IN MY MOTHERFUCKING WITNESS?”  
  
“It would appear so, sir.”  
  
“AGENT, GET THE NEEDLE OUT OF MY MOTHERFUCKING WITNESS.”  
  
“Will do, Director. _Wojiwicz._ Remove the needle and then remove yourself.”  
  
“Right sir. Sorry, sir. Now, ma’am, if you’ll just hold still—”  
  
“HOLD STILL? THERE’S A FUCKING NEEDLE IN MY HEART!”  
  
“Yes I know and if you just let me—”  
  
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Nick Fury says, striding forward and grabbing the needle. “Hold the fuck still,” he instructs the woman, and yanks the needle out. “Here,” he says, handing it to Wojiwicz without breaking eye contact with the witness. “Now get the fuck out of my interrogation room and don’t let me see you again until you’ve grown the fuck up. It should take about fifteen years, by my estimation.”  
  
“Make it twenty,” Phil says behind him.  
  
“Yes sir. Sorry, sir,” says Wojiwicz, and beats a hasty retreat for the door.  
  
“Remind me why we hire white boys again?” Fury says to Phil.  
  
“I’m drawing a blank right now, sir,” says Phil.  
  
“That’s what I thought, too,” says Fury. “I swear if it weren’t for the fucking equal opportunity laws you’d be the last one.”  
  
“Thank you, sir.”  
  
“Don’t thank me, your boyfriend would be out on his ass.”  
  
Phil shrugs. “You pay me enough for the both of us.”  
  
“Ain’t that the truth,” Fury says. The woman, still trembling with adrenaline, looks back and forth between Fury and Phil with an expression of increasing confusion.  
  
“Are you like good-cop bad-cop?” she finally asks. Fury just stares at her.  
  
“We aren’t cops,” says Phil, leaning forward on a pile of folders. They’re full of maternity leave forms and travel reimbursements, but Coulson never enters an interrogation without a stack of official-looking folders. The stack suggests surveillance, makes your subject think you’ve been compiling data on them for years, even if you’ve just yanked them off the street and don’t even know their name. Because the trick plays on the human need to feel important and central, it almost always works. Phil’s seen Fury use a manila Trapper Keeper full of Chinese takeout menus. “We’re SHIELD.”  
  
The woman looks back and forth at both of them again. “Is that like a government thing?”  
  
“Close enough,” says Fury. “Close enough to take an interest in what you’re doing trying to swallow a suicide pill instead of talking to us about the human lemming herd we got down on 8th Avenue.”  
  
The woman’s eyes dart to Phil, who projects bland interest. She clears her throat. “Could I have some water?” she asks.  
  
Fury looks to Phil. “You check her for more surprises?”  
  
“Yeah, boss. She’s clean.”  
  
“Okay then.” Fury leans back in his chair, hollers over his shoulder. “Can we get some water in here?!”  
  
A young agent comes in holding a paper cup, holds it to the woman’s mouth so she can take a long sip. “Thanks,” she says, her voice shaky. The agent disappears and closes the door with a faint snick behind him. The woman looks at Phil. “Could you tell me what time it is, please?”  
  
Phil looks at his watch. “It’s nine o’clock.”  
  
She breathes out. “Ahh.”  
  
“Ahh what?” says Fury, visibly losing patience.  
  
She fixes Fury with a look, and suddenly she is smiling, wide and proud and as dangerous as anyone Phil’s ever seen on the other side of one of these tables.  
  
“Why don’t you turn on CNN and find out?” she says, sweet as can be, and that’s when the shooting starts. 

 

 

“FUCKING HELL—TASHA, WHERE IS THAT COMING FROM?!”  
  
“I DON’T KNOW!”  
  
“Q299, YOU ARE TAKING FIRE FROM _BOTH BUILDINGS_ REPEAT _BOTH BUILDINGS_ ,” Maria Hill screams over the comms at Clint, which makes sense, cause all of a sudden the jet is bucking and tilting like a bronco with a bee lodged in its ass.  
  
“Jesus,” Clint says, and Natasha hurriedly straps in as the false copter swivels around slowly and menacingly to get a bead on—shit, it’s aiming at Iron Man. “TASHA TAKE THEM OUT!” Clint hollers, because it’s taking both his hands just to keep the jet in the air, and Tasha grabs the cannon triggers and just _saws the false copter in half_ , neat punches of fifty-caliber ammunition evenly spaced in a diagonal line across the copter’s body, capped off with a few rounds straight into the rotor housing. The wounded copter hovers for a breath-holding moment and then begins to fall, sideways, towards the makeshift bunker below.  
  
“Shit,” Natasha hisses, and Clint rears the Jet around, trying to get the hell out of the way of the coming explosion, but the Quinjet just keeps losing altitude and his rudder isn’t working for shit, and Clint has just enough presence of mind as the tailspin starts to scream at Tasha to hold on, and then the centrifugal force pulls black sparkly blood into his vision and his hands are torn from the controls, and just as the phrase _I am going to pass out_ scrolls across his brain, there’s a jarring thud and the Quinjet stops spinning, stops falling, and then there is the earsplitting roar of one very angry Hulk, a roar which vibrates up through the body of the Quinjet and makes it very clear just exactly who stopped them from falling. The jet jars once or twice, and Clint just registers that the Hulk is _shaking them at his enemies_ before the jet and its passengers lurch, slowly, towards the base of the nearest building, where the Hulk sets them down, not ungently. Clint can hear the rattling of dozens of rounds of small arms fire pinging off the roof of the Quinjet.  
  
‘Come on, Tasha, we gotta get out of here,” he says, helping her out of her harness—she is woozy from the tailspin and lets him haul her to her feet, help her to the back gate with her arm slung over his shoulders. He doesn’t give the bad guys long before they produce a rocket launcher. They seem like those kind of folks. As they wait for the gate to open, Clint takes deep breaths, preparing for a hard run, hoping to see a garage entrance or a big ol’ dumpster or something they could use for cover. The gate opens and he sees something better. Much, much better. 

 

 

“Reports indicate a massive and ongoing fight underway in the heart of Manhattan, where the Avengers are pinned down under heavy fire from forces unknown. One helicopter has apparently already crashed, and an unknown number of potentially infected civilian population are currently being held—”  
  
Phil closes the door on the chaos of the SHIELD offices. Inside the interrogation room, the handcuffed woman smiles up at him from her seat at the table.  
  
“Don’t you want to see the action?” she says, sweetly.  
  
“I’d rather hear about it from you,” Phil says. “What’s supposed to happen?”  
  
She shrugs. “What makes you think I know? I was supposed to be dead twenty minutes ago, remember?”  
  
Phil shakes his head. “I don’t think so. I think you panicked. I think you were supposed to be talking to me twenty minutes ago, and you panicked and decided you’d rather not be a spokesman at all for whatever this is. Because that’s what you are, isn’t it. A spokesman. You’re pretty, well-dressed; you let us catch you. You’re publicity, for whatever this is.”  
  
Her eyes glint at him, and she leans forward. “Very good,” she says. “But no. I’m not the publicity. That, out there,” and she raises her eyebrows towards the door through which the chaotic noise of a hundred TV sets is faintly audible, “is the publicity. Good ad campaign, isn’t it?”  
  
Phil blinks. “An ad campaign. Advertising what. Biological weapons? Nanobots? Subliminal messaging?”  
  
She actually laughs at that. “Silly, all we had was a few people who could walk in a straight line and not blink very much. You made all that other stuff, about what, nanobots? Magic? Imaginary technology? Think, all that nonsense to explain why a crowd of people were all walking in the same direction. And look what we got out of it. The Avengers. We’re advertising _you_ , darling. If we can get your dream team exactly where we want them with just a tiny bit of bait, who else do you think might be interested in purchasing our services?”  
  
Phil’s heard enough. He pushes away from the table and heads for the door, moving fast but not fast enough to avoid hearing her goodbye. She whispers it softly, mockingly, as the door closes behind him.  
  
“Hail HYDRA.” 

 

 

“You know, I’m not sure I’ve ever been happier to see you, big guy,” Clint says, conversationally. “You too, Cap.” The Hulk is standing right outside the door, holding aloft a tremendous chunk of steel—possibly a section of bridge—like a courteous gentleman holding aloft a folded newspaper to shelter a lady’s hair. Small arms fire pings off the bridge section like hail, and Clint ushers Natasha underneath it before squeezing in next to Steve underneath his shield.  
  
“Ready to run for the bunker?” Steve says. “On three. One,” and the Hulk takes off, Natasha racing to keep up with his gargantuan stride. Steve sighs. “We’re going to have to work on Hulk’s counting skills. You ready?”  
  
“As I’ll ever be,” says Clint, and they dart out into the rain of bullets, skidding into the bunker and straight into the Hulk’s back. The Hulk is standing stiff, alert. All noise in the bunker has ceased. Clint peers carefully out from around Hulk’s forearm. All the people on the treadmill have stopped running. Instead, they’ve turned to stare at the Hulk, Cap, Natasha and Clint. To a one, they’re smiling. Well. Not the Gold’s Gym employees at the back of the bunker. _They_ all look terrified. One of them is mouthing something at Clint. It’s Get Out Now, unless he’s mistaken, and he is not mistaken. That’s the first phrase Tasha taught him to lip-read.  
  
“Cap?” Clint whispers. “This is more’n a little creepy.”  
  
“Glad it’s not just me thinking that,” Steve replies, and that’s when one of the oldest men on the treadmills starts clapping, laughing genially like he’s played a lovely practical joke. Clint feels all the muscles in his ass bunch up, because he knows a threat when he sees one, and all the Avengers around him tense equally, because so do they.  
  
“Gentlemen, gentlemen, well played,” the older man says, his body telegraphing friendliness and his eyes telegraphing anything but. “You played your parts perfectly, though I must say, I think my small cast of players are really the stars of the day, don’t you?”  
  
Clint’s heard enough. He draws the arrow he’s had nocked for three minutes now and aims it squarely at the older man’s left eye. “You know what I hate?” he announces to the world in general. “Verbose motherfuckers.”  
  
The older man grins. His teeth are very visible. “Agent Barton, you may shoot me if you wish. But it will not make the slightest bit of difference. Everyone in this bunker is going to die in the next five minutes anyway.”  
  
“Yeah? How’s that?” Clint says. He’s _really_ not wild about this guy knowing his real name, but he’s gonna focus on the dying-in-the-next-five-minutes part and not the blown-identity part right now, thanks.  
  
The man turns and makes a little “wrapping-up” gesture with his finger to the other treadmill walkers, and to a one they snap to attention and raise their arms in a familiar two-fisted salute. “Clint,” Natasha says, and it’s her lowest, most frightened voice. Cap doesn’t say anything, but Clint can _hear_ his sharp intake of breath from here, and that’s with a Hulk standing between them. The crowd’s faces are strong, fierce, and Clint’s neck prickles as he realizes that this isn’t nanobots, this isn’t some kinda weird mind control. This is determination. These are _true believers_. Men. Women. Teenagers. Wearing Reebok hoodies and yoga pants and Justin Bieber t-shirts.  
  
“Hail HYDRA!” the older man yells, and the treadmill crowd echoes it back.  
  
“Hail HYDRA!”  
  
 _“Hail HYDRA!”  
  
“Hail HYDRA!”  
  
 **“HAIL HYDRA!”  
  
“HAIL HYDRA!”**_  
  
Just beyond the chanting crowd, Clint can see Tony Stark, sneaking the way only Tony Stark can’t sneak, along the back wall where the Gold’s Gym employees are huddled. Clint’s eyes snap back to the leader. Put an audience in front of them, and they won’t look behind them. The chanting abruptly stops, and for a second there’s total silence—Clint sees Stark freeze in the back, leading a whole duckling-row of terrified Gold’s employees towards the exit. It’s almost comically awkward, and then Natasha makes an anguished noise, and Clint sees without comprehending as every face of the HYDRA crowd ripples and contorts with a strange motion, as if they’re all choking at once. Then they start dropping like flies. Men, women, teenagers, staggering first, then twisting, contorting, dropping to the ground, some not even able to break their fall, smacking their heads against handles and treadmill arms, collapsing on each other and twitching in agony. Horrible groaning noises, uncontrollable guttural things, rise from the crowd.  
  
“Tasha?!! TASHA, what’s happening!?” Clint yells, abandoning his bow and jumping down into the mess, grabbing the first teenager he sees—a teenager, Christ—and grabbing her neck, looking for a pulse. Her head lolls back in his arms, and her face, Christ, her face is blue, and there’s foam, Tasha, so much foam.  
  
“What the fuck is happening, Tasha?!!” he hears himself scream, and there’s a panic in him that he hasn’t felt since the night his mother’s boyfriend locked him and his brother inside the campervan (so the boys wouldn’t see what he was doing; Clint knew what he was doing) and took her out behind her own car and beat her to death with a crowbar. The girl in Clint’s arms gurgles and foams, and he’s got two fingers knuckle-deep in her mouth trying to find the thing that’s gotta be there, there’s gotta be something choking her. “Tasha!” he screams, terrified that _this is gas, is this gas, is this a gas attack, is this what gas feels like he can’t remember_ , and suddenly Cap’s arms are around him from behind, dragging him away, and Cap’s voice is in his ear. “Son. You can’t help her. You’ll only hurt yourself if she bites you and gets some of that cyanide in you.”  
  
And Clint bucks and struggles like a snagged stray dog, but Cap’s too strong, and Hulk is whimpering and Tony Stark is on his knees and Natasha is crying and there are women dying all around Clint, and he cannot do piss-shit-fuck-damn-all to stop it. 

Again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains a graphic description of 1) a suicide attempt and 2) a group suicide by members of HYDRA. Both are in order to avoid capture/interrogation; they are ugly, graphic, and some of the HYDRA members are teens and young women. The context does suggest gas chambers; the resonance is intentional, as HYDRA originated in Nazi Germany. Additionally, Clint has a graphic flashback to his mother's murder at the hands of her then-boyfriend. Please do not read this if you feel the content will be difficult to manage or handle.


	3. Chapter 3

“That was a threat.”  
Stark, naturally, is the first to speak after things get quiet inside the bunker. Well, as quiet as things can get with small arms fire clattering off the roof and fourteen traumatized Gold’s Gym employees sobbing in a corner.  
  
“What?” says Steve.  
  
Stark’s gone all glassy-eyed, the way he gets when his brain’s moving a little too fast for his mouth to keep up. “A threat. He said—everyone in this bunker is gonna be dead in the next five minutes. Everyone. We’re still alive, ergo, they had to have something in mind to kill us after they all drank the Kool-Aid. Something’s coming.”  
  
“A bomb?” says Cap, and struggles to his feet, kindly pushing down on Clint’s shoulder like the last three minutes have been all about _him_ leaning on _Clint_ for support, instead of Clint clinging to him like a baby while he screamed hysterically.  
  
“Nah,” says Stark. “They woulda had to know where we were gonna build the bunker. Could be a missile, but frankly they don’t strike me as the type.”  
  
“There’s a type for missiles?” Steve says.  
  
“There’s a type for everything,” Stark says. “Trust me, I made and sold weapons, _everybody’s_ gotta kink. These people are fanatics, they’re crazyass jihadists. And jihadists want audiences, terrified audiences. This whole thing, with the parade and the fucking Bieber shirts and the lockstep. This was fucking… _**theatre**_.” Stark pronounces the word like it’s a hair stuck to the back of his throat. His face is darkening, and as he looks off into the distance he twiddles his fingers, which in the suit sounds like he’s juggling a handful of heavy change. _“Again.”_ His faceplate thunks down, and he goes stomping towards the opening of the bunker, muttering the whole way about “fucking _actors_ ” and “like I’m in fucking _Groundhog Day_ ” and “fuck all of this, fuck it _twice_ , fuck it _so hard_ —”  
  
“Stark!” Cap calls out, but Stark waves him off and keeps on walking, steps out into the street. “Oh,” Cap says in a deflated voice as Stark stands in the hail of small arms fire, bullets pinging off of his helmet, his armor not even really scratching that badly. “I guess that really is a good suit.”  
  
“Yeah,” says Natasha. “He’s pretty proud of it.”  
  
They all watch as Stark slowly turns, taking in the sights on either side of the street—then raises his arms and flips off both buildings’ worth of snipers, rotating slowly to make sure they get a good long look at his ironclad middle fingers. Then he stomps back into the bunker. Once he’s inside, he flips the visor up, and he’s still muttering but he at least **looks** a little more cheerful.  
  
“Stark, what was the point of that?” Steve says.  
  
Stark shrugs, goes to the back of the bunker, hoists himself up and peers through a crack down 8th Avenue. “Made me feel better.” Drops back down. “Therapy, Cap, you should try it. Don’t repress your emotions, let ‘em out. ‘S a healthy thing. I expressed myself to these asswipes and now I feel better. By the way, the cavalry’s comin’.”  
  
“Wait, what?” says Clint.  
  
“You heard me. Cavalry, see for yourself.”  
  
Clint and Natasha both go to the little crack between the barriers and look out—sure as anything, there’s a whole phalanx of SWAT trucks, cop cars and behind them, ambulances.  
  
“Let’s go out and meet them, shall we?” says Stark, turning back towards the entrance.  
  
“Stark, we can’t just do that, these civilians don’t have bulletproof…” and Steve trails off as Stark steps back out into…. the utterly quiet street. “They’ve stopped shooting.’  
  
“Like I said, Cap. Cavalry’s here. Come on, step lively,” Stark says lightly, motioning to the nearest Gold’s employee. She swallows, visibly steeling herself, and steps out of the bunker with her eyes squinched tight shut, clearly waiting for the volley of shots which… doesn’t come. Stark takes her outstretched hand and gently leads her away from the bunker. The others follow like ducklings, and he points them to the corner pizza shop, where they all crowd in and begin crying, calling their families, taking pictures out the windows. Stark pivots and marches back to the Avengers, his face suddenly very grim. “Listen to me,” he says under his breath as the first row of police and SWAT trucks roll up and about a dozen uniformed men jump out, their weapons aimed at the now-empty windows of the buildings on either side. “We are not even _close_ to safe right now. We are about to be abducted by some _very_ well-organized people, and if we fight back right now, we are going be very, _very_ dead, so just _follow my lead_.” He looks up at Hulk. “Shit, I hope you understood that, buddy,” and just then a SWAT member taps Stark on the shoulder, and he turns around with the hundred-megawatt smile.

“What can I do for you, officer?”  
  
“We’re here to extract you, sir. Please come with us, we’ll get you all some medical attention.”  
  
“Sound great,” says Stark. “I gotta really nasty pinched nerve anyway, could really use a rubdown. Lead the way.” And leads the Avengers through the crowd of SWAT trucks towards the ambulances. Clint tries to keep his pulse down, tries to look really carefully at what’s going on around him. It looks like a pretty standard New York emergency response team, but as Clint looks, he notices that most of the SWAT team members are hanging around the path the Avengers are taking instead of storming the buildings; that most of the cops seem to be watching **them** instead of running towards the bunker full of herd-zombie “civilians”; that the ambulance they’re being lead towards has reinforced doors. _Shit._ Stark’s right. Clint’s not sure which feels worse right now—the knowledge that he’s about to be kidnapped by a terrifying group of weird science-Nazis, or that fact that Tony Stark has noticed something that Clint hasn’t. In the distance, at least ten blocks away, Clint can hear the mournful wailing of many different siren tones: probably the _real_ emergency response teams.

  
  
As Clint walks, purposefully slowing his gait to the sort of languid perp-walk that allows time and thought, he sees that the rest of his team has also snapped to the truth of Tony’s theory. Natasha, her body language a symphony of misdirection, is silkily palming every makeshift weapon she can brush up against on her way towards the ambulances; Clint watches with profound admiration as she snaps off one of the cop cars’ radio antennae and stashes it up her sleeve without even breaking stride. Cap is doing something with his hands, the weird Depressiony counting and multiplication thing he learned in school—it uses the space between the knuckles as well as the knuckles themselves, and it’s a fun finger game, kinda like Cat’s Cradle, but Clint’s willing to bet that Cap’s using it to count how many enemy forces they’re up against, figuring out how their units are organized, and making rough estimates of how many troops might be waiting in the wings. Thor, whose perp-walk makes Clint’s perp-walk look amateur by comparison (it’s the shoulders, _shit_ Clint has gotta spend more time in the gym) is smiling broadly up at the windows of the flanking buildings, a big broad politician’s smile for the cameras, but he’s bumping up against _every single_ cop and medic and SWAT team member he passes, and what looks like a casual/accidental bump from Thor carries so much force that the body-checked guards are bouncing off their own vehicles. Hulk, walking just behind Clint, is _radiating_ alarm, his arms poised in readiness to grab his team members and run, his breathing like a racehorse in the gate. Clint glances upward—the five real SHIELD copters are still up there, just hovering, but he’s sure they’re watching, sure they’re waiting for a cue from the Avengers. He hopes to hell Maria has a high-powered lens on him right now, because there’s only about ten steps to the ambulances now and finger-signing is hard even when you’re not pretending to scratch your scalp and unable to see what you’re signing and also really bad at spelling.

 

 

 

“A… T… R… I… think that’s a P… It’s a trip? A trip, what the _fuck_ , Barton,” Maria says, staring down in confusion at the letters Barton is signing over the top of his head, and then the helicopter pilot, Darnell, snaps and yells over his shoulder at her, “TRAP, TRAP, it’s a TRAP, JESUS, ma’am, haven’t you ever seen fuckin’ Star Wars?”  
  
Maria’s a little taken aback, because Darnell, who up until now has not said Word One to her, always struck her as shy to the point of paralysis. Which doesn’t mean he’s wrong; Maria’s mouth closes as she thinks about the message.  
  
Darnell, apparently, is on a roll—now that he’s spoken up, he is not about to be stopped. “Jesus Christ almighty, it’s like you people don’t even see what’s happening in front of you. Did you not notice that the ambulances were all coming from the same direction? And the cop cars? And the SWAT? Haven’t you ever even dialed 911 before? Don’t you know what happens? You know the response time isn’t that good, right? Am I the only one who sees what’s going on here? I mean, aren’t you people supposed to be _good at your fuckin’ jobs?_ ”  
  
Maria’s heard enough, and she knows something about how promotions in major governmental organizations happen, so she unbuckles her seatbelt and slides forward fluidly so she can talk to Darnell without yelling. “No, Darnell, apparently we don’t see what’s happening. So tell me what you see.”  
  
Darnell shakes his head in frustration, but he points to the group below and begins: “Well, for starters, those aren’t cop cars. I know they _look_ like cop cars, but those are VW Passats, and there inn’t a department in New York OR New Jersey uses those. And listen to our radios. What do you hear?”  
  
“Nothing, but that’s because we’ve got a compromised commun—”  
  
“Naw, naw, that’s why there’s no _SHIELD_ traffic on the radio, but why isn’t there anyone else on there? With this many cops and SWAT and ambulances around, there should be a whole mess a static and interference, but there isn’t. They’re not cops. Now _those,_ _those_ are cops,” Darnell says, pointing down 44th Street to where two squad cars, both blockaded by traffic, are flashing their lights—then up 8th Ave to where another three squad cars are jammed up in a badly stuck intersection.  
  
“Shit,” breathes Maria, because Darnell is right, and she is watching the Avengers get loaded into a trap, and she has no idea what to do next. “Why aren’t they fighting back?” she asks, and then answers her own question. “The civilians in the bunker. They’re hostages.”  
  
Darnell is looking too. “Ma’am, if they’re hostages, then these people don’t know how hostages work.”  
  
Maria looks. The false EMTs are rolling a stretcher out of the bunker. Then another. Then another. Every single one has a body bag on it. “What the _fuck_ ,” she says. The false EMTs are loading the body bags, with startling efficiency, into the backs of the ambulances that don’t hold the Avengers. As each one is loaded, the ambulances start up and take off, turning westbound.  
  
“Ma’am? What are we gonna do?”  
  
Maria thinks about it for a second. Then leans out the door of the helicopter and waves to the SHIELD scientist—is that Fitz, or Simmons? Maria can never tell—crouching on the roof of 573 8th Street. The young woman waves back, and Maria signs a few letters in Morse, then switches to military signaling for the rest of the message. The young woman watches intently, then nods and signs the message back to Maria perfectly for confirmation—so they _are_ teaching them something in Academy—before turning and waving to get the attention of her partner, five roofs over on top of the Shubert Theatre who stands to relay the message to the next tech along the diagonal chain leading to the roof of 47th Street. Maria then leans out the door and signs the message to the other four copter pilots. “HYDRA has Avengers. Going in stealth pursuit.”  
  
She sits back in and nods to Darnell. “Think you can follow these people without being seen?”  
  
Darnell chuckles. “Ma’am, not getting seen is my specialty.” He drops in altitude, making a large, showy circle, and, followed by the other four copters, makes a beeline towards Paramus. “Let’s let ‘em think we’re going back to base.”  
  
“You think they’ll buy that?”  
  
“Everybody likes to think their plans are working out. They wanna play like they’re real emergency response teams, we’ll show them belief. They won’t question it, and they won’t be looking for us when we catch up with ‘em.”  
  
Maria glances in the rear fisheye mirror that’s mounted to the edge of the door. “And where do you plan to catch up with them?” she asks.  
  
“That’ll depend on where they’re going,” Darnell says. “But judging from the direction they’re going, they gotta go through the Lincoln Tunnel to get there.”  
  
Maria sighs. “I shoulda known this day was gonna end up in Jersey.”

 

 

 

 

“Sir! Sir!” A new agent comes crashing into the bullpen where Phil, on the phone with the head of counterterrorism at the CIA, is trying to make himself heard over about thirty other agents all hollering at experts of their own. “Another message from Fitzsimmons!”  
  
Phil hangs up—there’s nothing the guy can tell him anyway. They’re playing such a monumental game of catch-up at this point that even if the phone system is compromised, they couldn’t really be more fucked. “What is it?” he says.  
  
The younger agent looks terrified. “Hill says HYDRA’s got the Avengers, and she’s going in stealth pursuit.”  
  
Everything goes whiteish at the edges of Phil’s vision. “Say again?” he says.  
  
“Hill says, and I quote,” the younger agent says, “HYDRA has Avengers. Going in stealth pursuit.”  
  
Phil blinks. Tries to clear his vision. Tries again. “Did she happen to say where she was pursuing them towards?” he says.  
  
“No, sir. I came down here as soon as I got the message.”  
  
Phil looks at the closest TV—CNN has switched to replays of the lemming herd, the crawl reading “Standoff over”. Then the announcer comes on: “This standoff has reached a horrifying conclusion: the full scope of the tragedy cannot be understood without an explanation. What happened inside the makeshift bunker to bring the lives of so many civilians to such a sudden, shocking end?” A momentary flash of the bunker being unloaded by EMTs; the crawl reads “Almost 300 bodies removed from makeshift bunker; cause of death unknown.” Then a flash of the Avengers, obediently filing into a large ambulance. Phil steps close to the screen, staring intently at the coverage, feeling blocks of truth dropping in his mind like chunks of glacier calving off into cold water. Clint’s never gotten into an ambulance in his life without kicking up a fuss.  
  
“The EMTs,” he says.  
  
“Looks that way, sir,” says the younger agent.  
  
“They’re all HYDRA.”  
  
“Yes, sir.”  
  
“And they have my team in the back of an ambulance.”  
  
“Looks that way, Cheese,” says Fury from behind him. He puts a hand on Phil’s shoulder, and Phil feels his knees buckle slightly. “Whyn’cha let me talk to the team for a moment.”  
  
“Go ahead, sir,” says Phil, stepping back, and Nick steps into the empty space at the center of the floor.  
  
“About five minutes ago,” Fury says to the group of agents, “Earth’s mightiest heroes were taken prisoner by a group of terrorists that up until about ten minutes ago, we weren’t sure still existed. These people are so well organized that in just one day, they’ve managed to compromise our communications systems, impersonate both a SHIELD chopper and an emergency response crew, and somehow inspire over three hundred people to eat cyanide for them. If this is what they can do today, then _I do not want them alive to see tomorrow_. Am I clear?”  
  
 _“Yes sir!”_

  
“Now I don’t know how they got access to our communications systems,” says Fury, and his glare rakes the room, “or how they managed to sneak a chopper into one of our formations, or especially how _in the fuck_ they managed to convince six superheroes that a quiet surrender was a good option. But I want you to keep in mind that they have done _all those things_ when I give you your next orders: if at any point throughout this operation, you realize that the man or woman beside you is working for HYDRA, you take out your weapon, and you shoot that motherfucker right between the eyes. Am I fucking clear on this?”  
  
The “Yes sir” is a little more muted now, and Phil watches as Fury draws himself to his full height.  
  
“I _**said**_ am I clear on this?”  
  
 _“Yes sir!”_  
  
“Good. Now is not a time for pussyfooting around. We are at war, and anyone working to sabotage this operation is gonna be treated as an enemy combatant. You shoot, and you shoot to kill. Anyone gotta problem with that, you can leave your badge by the door.”  
  
None of the agents staring back at Fury make a move, but there’s a little stirring near the front door, and a cough as it opens, letting in some of the bright summer air, then closes again. Phil can’t see the head bobbing through the crowd, but he can hear the very small, very soft “Sorry, sorry, so sorry, excuse me”s that accompany it.  
  
“Well then. Now that that’s settled,” says Fury. “We are not sure which communications systems have been compromised, which means that **all** of our communications systems are to be considered compromised until proven otherwise. Which is going to take time, which I don’t got. We need a backup communication system until we can get back on our feet. Ideas?” He puts his hands on his hips and turns, looking over the crowd of silent faces. “I’m all ears here.”  
  
For a moment, there’s silence, and then, very tentatively, a small hand comes up from the back of the crowd. Phil knows whose hand that is.  
  
“Director Fury?” comes a faint, frightened-sounding voice.  
  
“Yeah? Who is that?”  
  
“It’s me, sir,” says Jemma Simmons. “I’m sorry, I’m out of breath, I ran the whole way back here. But I think I have a communications system in mind for you.”  
  
“Well by all means, speak up, girl!” Fury says. “We ain’t got all day here.”  
  
Jemma pushes her way forwards through the crowd of male agents, a tiny woman in paisley and pearls parting a sea of Armani and shoulder holsters. As she appears, she seeks Phil out; her eyes are bright and shining. “I’ll need to call Westchester,” she says.

 

 

 

 

No sooner does the ambulance engine start—the rumbling noise providing sound cover—than the Avengers have the mother of all whisper-fights.  
  
“So help me, Stark, you had better have a plan,” Natasha hisses, and Clint is all set to chime in on _that_ chorus, but he’s interrupted by Cap: “I’m confused about why we sacrificed adequate cover—” who is interrupted by Thor: “I am sure Friend Stark is lulling the enemy like the wily earthweasel of Asg—” who is interrupted by the ear-popping sound of a lot of air rushing to fill the space where Hulk used to be, and where Bruce now sits. Everyone’s quiet for that.  
  
Well. Sort of quiet. “Never seen _that_ happen before,” Stark says. “JARVIS, you get that recorded, buddy?”  
  
 _“STARK!”_ quite a few people say in unison.  
  
“Hey, guys,” Bruce says, blinking blearily.  
  
“Hi, Doctor Banner,” says Steve, patting Bruce on the shoulder. “Feeling okay?”  
  
“Are we still being taken to a second location by a horrifying group of terrorists?”  
  
Steve winces. “Yes.”  
  
“Then I guess I’m feeling about the same as I was a few minutes ago,” says Bruce.  
  
The ambulance lurches into movement, and Steve leans forward. “Stark, if you’ve got a plan, now might be a _really good time_ to share it.”  
  
Stark’s looking up at the ceiling of the ambulance, eyes darting around like he’s running calculations. “I don’t have a plan, Cap, I have information,” he says. “You’re the strategist, I’m just the man in the can.” His eyes drop to Steve’s. “Whaddya want first, the good news or the bad news?”  
  
Steve, patience visibly straining, makes a hurry-it-up gesture. “Just—give me all of it, wouldja?”  
  
Clint sneaks a look at Natasha, whose face is resolutely wooden.  
  
“OK, bad news first,” says Stark. “We’re surrounded by bombs. Every single one of these people, and I mean SWAT, EMTs, our drivers, and every single one of those chanting assholes in the bunker is a bomb. You’ve all heard of Extremis?”  
  
“I’ve seen footage,” says Steve, and the others nod.  
  
“OK, well then you know it’s very unstable, right, that’s its weakness. It increases your speed, your strength, hell it means you can breathe fire if you really want to, but unlike your special vitamin booster shot, Cap, it can also makes you explode at some very inopportune moments. Can’t be controlled. And when you do explode, anyone else with Extremis around you is likely to get set off themselves, just daisy chaining along. Now, I know what you’re thinking, domino effect, bickity bam, problem solved, but here’s the thing: these are not _little_ explosions we’re talking about here. These are three **thousand** degree meltdowns, you don’t wanna be anywhere close when one of ‘em lights off, much less a whole buncha them. If you don’t believe me, just ask Happy, he was in the hospital for three weeks and he was twenty feet away from just the one dude. We can’t be surrounded when they blow, and we can’t do it near civilians either.”  
  
“The Gold’s Gym folks,” Clint says.  
  
“Yeah. Them,” says Stark. “Only decent people we’ve encountered all day and we dragged them into this.”  
  
“You couldn’ta known, Stark,” says Steve, and Stark waves him off. “Story of my life, Cap, spare me another chorus. Anyway. Where was I. Right. Extremis. There is another way around it, but frankly it involves medical care and I don’t like any of these people that much, so back to Option A, blowing them up. Oh wait, I forgot one other part of the bad news.”  
  
Steve looks a bit faint. “Yes?”  
  
“Extremis produces a heat signature, a very… distinctive heat signature. As long as the affected person is alive, they show up on the HUD, they light up through concrete block walls, that’s how hot these people are on the inside. Reason that’s relevant is, did you notice how eager they were to get all those body bags jammed in the ambulances?”  
  
Steve frowns. “Yeah, I thought that was odd.”  
  
“More than odd, you want to stage an escape, you need to move fast, what’re you doing bringing dead bodies with you? These people don’t seem that sentimental, so I looked at our bunker friends through the HUD.”  
  
“They’re not dead,” Clint speaks up.  
  
“Bingo, extra points to Katniss.” Stark makes a finger-gun gesture at Clint. “And I don’t know what drug they were using to fake the whole, you know,” Stark makes a choking noise, twitches a little, sags to one side with his tongue lolling out and his eyes rolling up before sitting back up and continuing: “turning blue, foaming fucking death thing, but I have seen plenty of people die and that is **not** how it goes. This was an escape plan, a nice, neat way to get everyone out without questioning.”  
  
Clint sits straight up. “That’s it,” he announces to the world in general. “I am killing all these assholes _twice_.”  
  
“That’s the spirit, Katniss,” says Stark, and they have a maybe-kinda-okay moment before Stark’s off down another tangent in that mind which Clint imagines is a lot like one of those Burger King playgrounds, all tunnels and bright colors and plastic. “But killing them all is gonna require some suuuuper-careful planning if we don’t wanna be barbeque, and uh, planning’s not really my gig, I’m more of a point-and-shoot kinda guy, so, uh….” and here Stark trails off, seeming a little uncomfortable. “Cap? This is where you come in.”  
  
Steve looks utterly overwhelmed, and for just a moment Clint remembers that Cap is actually **younger** than he is, not in the historical sense but in the sense of he was a twenty-seven year old kid when he got frozen and he’s only been awake a year since then. Clint can’t even imagine what it’d be like to be twenty-eight years old again and have your team looking at you the way everyone’s looking at Steve right now. Thankfully, he doesn’t have to imagine it for long, because Steve takes a deep breath and suddenly he’s _Cap_ , pulling together a strategy.  
  
“All right then. We don’t know where they’re taking us, but we can guess it’s going to be fairly isolated and that we’ll be at gunpoint from the moment the doors open. Not that these people need gunpoint, apparently.”  
  
“Point of order,” Bruce says, raising a finger. “How do we get them to explode? I mean, when we get an opportunity?”  
  
“Good question,” Stark says. “Extremis runs on regular hits of this sorta druggy, thing, it’s like in inhaler form. Little metal flasks, they crack ‘em open and take a huff. Too much of it, junkie go boom.”  
  
“Okay,” says Steve. “Widow, it’s gonna be your job to get your hands on as many of those inhalers as you can.”  
  
Natasha nods, busily snapping her stolen radio antennae into thirds over her knee. “Who wants a shiv?” she asks, dropping the segments to the floor so she can stomp their tips into sharp points, and Clint raises his hand immediately. Natasha’s shivs are _great_.  
  
“Stark,” Steve continues. “Do you think you could cobble up some arrowheads with the drug inside them for Barton?”  
  
Stark looks offended. “I built the first _suit_ in a cave. I think I can manage a Stone Age weapon wherever _these_ morons are taking us.”  
  
“Great,” Steve says. “Widow, get the inhalers to Stark. Now, I assume they’re planning on holding us for ransom or something, because they haven’t killed us yet. And since they physically can’t disarm two of us,” he says, gesturing to both Thor and Hulk, “and would have a very rough time with the rest, my guess is they’ll simply put us in separate cells, far enough that we can’t communicate. Now, who’s the best at jailbreaking?”  
  
“Barton,” say several voices at once.  
  
“Hey!” says Clint, because praise is like heroin. It’s warm and delicious and he doesn’t trust it. At all. “What about big guy here?”  
  
“I think you’ll find him a little noisy for stealth work,” says Bruce mildly.  
  
“Yeah and of the six of us, who’s already found JARVIS’s backup memory banks while he was snooping around in a ventilator shaft?” Stark pipes up. At Clint’s startled look, he nods. “Yeah, I’m onto you, buddy. Geocaching, my ass.”  
  
Clint shrugs. “So sue me, I like to know where the massive supercomputer who’s watching me take a shit stores its video logs.”  
  
“Oh, don’t worry, Katniss, there are some things even JARVIS doesn’t wanna see.”  
  
Clint flips him off, and Stark makes a kissy face, and now Clint’s right back to wanting to watch Stark walk into a sliding glass door.  
  
“So Hawkeye’s area will be transport of intelligence and items between cells,” Steve says doggedly. “Widow gets procurement of necessary items, Stark gets weapons modification.” Clint wordlessly passes Stark a fistful of arrows to work with, and Stark slides them carefully down the back of his suit, wriggling around to settle them in place. Steve continues. “Thor, we have no safe communications system to the outside world right now. Do you have any Asgardian magic you could use to possibly create an uplink, some type of relay system so we can contact SHIELD?”  
  
Thor looks worried. “Gladly I will attempt it, but truthfully, spells were ere Loki’s strength, not mine. I fear I was but an idle student at our mother’s knee.”  
  
“Trying is all I ask,” says Steve. “Dr. Banner.”  
  
“You gonna tell me, when in doubt, smash?” says Bruce, a wry twist to his mouth.  
  
“Actually, I was hoping to use your medical expertise. Based on what you’ve seen, do you think it’s possible that this Extremis stuff has a stress component that we could exploit?”  
  
“It’s certainly possible,” Bruce shrugs.  
  
“How do we find out without setting these people off?”  
  
Bruce thinks about it, shoving his glasses a bit farther up his nose. “Well, we’d have to cause some minor irritation first…” and it's like Clint's hand just raises all on its own. Stark takes one look at him and bursts out laughing, and then Natasha does too, and pretty soon the ambulance is shaking, and it's a full three minutes before Cap gets them settled back down enough to continue planning.

 

 

 

“Are you SURE they were going towards the Lincoln Tunnel?” says Maria for probably the eighth time, and Darnell sighs. They’ve been sweeping back and forth over a considerable swatch of riverbank, keeping the tunnel exit in sight and trying stay low and inconspicuous, which in a giant black helicopter is not particularly easy. The other four copters have been sent back to Paramus to refuel, on the theory that it is even harder to maintain stealth with five giant black helicopters than it is with one. And without any guaranteed safe means of communication between aircraft, it’s probably just as well. But Darnell has been good company: in the twenty minutes it’s taken to do an elaborate circle-back to New Jersey, Maria has learned several interesting facts about SHIELD’s annual aircraft maintenance budget (horrifyingly low), its annual budget for office Christmas parties (horrifyingly high), and the levels of neoptism in its Purchasing Office (just plain horrifying). She’s also discovered that both she and Darnell have been on ops with Jasper Sitwell, and they’re well into a rousing game of The Most Frightening Things We’ve Seen Jasper Eat when Darnell suddenly straightens up and points.  
  
“Look there.”  
  
Maria leans forward, and sure enough, here comes the convoy, crawling out of the tunnel behind a cement mixer. They’ve killed all the lights and sirens they had going in Manhattan, but they haven’t lost any vehicles—Maria counts and recounts to make sure. She leans forward as Darnell sets out in slow pursuit, her eyes narrowing.  
 _“Where are you taking them?”_ she muses out loud.

 

 

 

 

Phil finds Fury in the interrogation room. A technician is hosing blood off the back wall. There’s no trace of the woman in the floral dress.  
  
“We’re a go on Westchester,” Phil tells Fury. “Wheels are up on the jet in ten.”  
  
Fury nods. “I ever tell you how much I hate spies?”  
  
Phil doesn’t respond. They stand there watching the blood swirl down the drain.

 

 

 

 

It’s been about eighteen minutes, one definite highway exit with pause to pay toll, and at least five minutes of stop-and-start city traffic when the Avengers’ ambulance/prison stops moving in a way that makes any kind of directional sense. It starts circling and doesn’t stop, and a cloverleaf would be one thing, but the ambulance is also definitely going **down** , at a very steep angle—Clint’s ears won’t stop popping. Stark checks the altimeter in his HUD and reports that they’re at least five stories below sea level and are definitely somewhere in New Jersey, but his GPS connection to satellite is breaking up and he can’t get a consistent bead on their location. Across the ambulance from Clint, Thor is doing some fancy flips and spins with Mjolnir, limbering up his wrists and forearms and making Natasha smile. Bruce and Steve are doing identical deep breathing exercises, huffing and puffing like supportive husbands in Lamaze class. Clint is just trying not to get sick. When they grind to a halt, he’s honestly relieved—at least if he gets shot, he won’t have puked on his shoes in front of Captain America. But the doors swing open and they’re not shot; instead, the guards (all pretense gone, these are guards with black combat boots and tac vests and stupid hats and everything), curtly gesture the Avengers out into something that looks an awful lot like a Roman coliseum, a circular stone fortress rising up many stories around a wide, sandy floor. Clint looks up, counts ten levels of arched walkways before the coliseum disappears into darkness—presumably there’s a ceiling up there, because there’s a battery of wicked harsh lights hanging from it, casting white light on the group of Avengers as they’re hustled across the floor. There are murmurs and little scuffling noises echoing down the stone stories—holy shit, there are kids here, Clint realizes as he notices some tow-headed siblings, about eight and ten, peering at them from behind a column one level up. Clint gives the kids a wink; never hurts to lay groundwork with the impressionable younger members of the terrifying group of weird science-Nazis. Stark is slowly scanning his helmet from side to side as he walks, no doubt recording structural details for one of those strange blueprinty hologram things he’s so fond of; Cap is still counting up the enemy troops; Thor is grinning widely at the kids, who seem _much_ more taken with his muscles and his hammer than with Clint’s wink; Bruce is concentrating on his deep breathing; Natasha is sniffing the air. “Kraft macaroni and cheese,” she mutters darkly.  
  
“Showoff,” he tells her, but she isn’t wrong; Tasha’s always had a sharper nose than Clint. The smells of cooking are getting stronger, though, and as they near the opposite side of the coliseum, Clint glances upward once more, looking past the lights as deeply as he can to the darkened ceiling beyond. Yup. Thirteen stories. They are thirteen stories deep in an underground fortress that HYDRA has apparently been living in long enough to get all domesticated. Oh yeah. And it’s in New Jersey. This day just keeps getting better and better.

 

 

 

 

“THE MEADOWLANDS?!!?!?” Maria shrieks. She’s been shrieking it, in varying degrees of shock, for about five minutes now. Darnell doesn’t seem to mind. He keeps shouting “I KNOW!!!” back at equal volume. It’s like a little duet.  
  
“But…. I was just THERE!” says Maria, staring in incredulity at the handheld GPS tracker that’s indicating, patchily, the relative location of the two SHIELD-issue cell phones (Clint and Natasha’s) that still haven’t been turned off. Which, Maria supposes, is good news, but right now she’s still a little hung up on how the hell they could be a hundred and thirty feet _underground_ , underneath _the fucking Meadowlands_. “I saw Springsteen there **_last week_ _!_ ”**  
  
“I know!” Darnell says, and they go for one more chorus of their duet before Maria finally shakes it off.  
  
“We’re gonna need way more backup.”

 

 

 

 

“Professor Xavier,” says Jemma Simmons, bounding across the lawn and extending her hand. “A pleasure to meet you.” Phil, standing well behind Simmons, notes that she’s playing up her British accent a bit; furthermore, she’s put on a crisp white lab coat for the visit. Xavier looks utterly charmed.  
“I assure you, my darling, the pleasure is entirely mine,” he says, “And may I say, your idea looks… _sublime_.” Jemma gives a little gasp as she realizes where Xavier is looking, and Phil bites down—hard—on the inside of his cheek. Keeping a straight face is a paramount Coulson family value. Xavier shows Jemma the way ahead of him into the mansion, and a strapping young man with acetylene-blue eyes and enormous wings offers her a well-muscled forearm to lean on as she picks her way over the white gravel. Xavier waits a tactful beat for the young pair to pull ahead before speaking.  
  
“Agent Coulson.”  
  
“Professor Xavier.”  
  
“An eager young Yorkshire scientist in a lab coat,” says Xavier, the amusement evident in his voice.  
  
Phil smiles. “An underwear model with gigantic wings.”  
  
Xavier chuckles, the sound rich and resonant. “I suppose we all have our little seduction tactics.”  
  
“Indeed.”  
  
“Her idea is sound,” continues Xavier. “And while I am happy to help retrieve your team, I must voice my strenuous wish that you had consulted us sooner. I can’t help but notice that you’ve been collecting evidence of this organization’s existence for nearly seven years.” He executes a remarkably sharp handbrake turn in the chair and is suddenly blocking Phil’s path. His gaze would be remarkably sharp even if he were not, at this very moment, raking through the contents of Phil’s mind. “The sharing of information is vital if our continued assistance is to be expected.”  
  
“You’re right,” Phil admits. “We dropped the ball on this one. We failed to realize the scope of the threat until it was too late.”  
  
“A failure which could have been prevented had we been invited to help,” presses Xavier, his agitation evident. His hand grips one of his wheels, and Phil realizes that the professor is holding back his temper with extreme difficulty; now that Jemma and her escort are inside, the gloves are coming off. “It seems no matter how eagerly we demonstrate our desire to aid humanity, SHIELD still regards us as dangerous liabilities. You now have an entire team of superhumans. What makes them trusted members of the intelligence community, while those who carry the mutant gene are still held at arms’ length?”  
  
“I have no good answer for you, Professor,” says Phil simply and honestly. Xavier makes a small, frustrated sigh, settles himself back in his chair. Stares at Coulson for a moment. The midday sun heats the white gravel to blazing and stuns all the songbirds into silence.  
  
When Xavier finally speaks, his voice is firm and quiet. “I hardly need remind you, Agent, that any terrorist group with Nazi-style ideology would pose a grave danger to the mutant community.”  
  
“No,” agrees Phil, and he’s not sure if it’s Xavier’s telepathy or his own unquiet conscience that whispers to him as they enter the mansion. _And yet, it seems I’ve had to._

 

 

 

 

The HYDRA guards behave more or less exactly as Steve predicted; they place the Avengers in separate cells, far enough apart to make casual conversation difficult. Stark and Banner are placed on the first floor, a few cells apart, separated by the kitchen entrance. Thor is placed in a cell on the second floor, between Stark and Banner’s cells so he can see neither of them. Cap is placed on the fourth floor, directly above Thor, and Clint and Natasha are thrown into two tiny cells on the sixth floor, rotated about a quarter turn around the coliseum from Stark and Banner’s cells. If Clint cranes really hard, he can just see the corner of Stark’s cell. Enough to maybe hand-signal Stark, if the guards aren’t paying any kind of attention. 

 

Clint is put in his cell last, and he tries not to take it personally that the teenaged-looking guard barely even bothers to check the lock after he’s latched it. It doesn’t matter. The cells are an architectural joke—the walls are cheap concrete block, which would hold an angry Hulk for about two point three seconds, and the gates are municipal-park grade at best; the real threat is the guards, who pace the circular walkways, the telltale glow of Extremis pulsing visibly at their throats and cheeks. Clint counts two per level of the coliseum, which seems low until he notices a few blackish scorch marks on the walls and floors and remembers that _oh yeah_ , people with Extremis can _breathe fire_. So: all Clint has to do is coordinate and facilitate a speedy breakout from an underground facility in an unknown location staffed by heavily-armed science-Nazis who are also, sort of, dragons. Easy peasy.

 

Clint looks around his cell—there’s an empty plastic paint bucket with a metal handle in the corner and an old-fashioned metal-frame bed with cotton tick mattress off to the side. Wonderful. For the first time in what feels like ages, JARVIS isn’t watching, and yet Clint finds he needs an audience for what he’s about to do. He waits and, as the eighteen-year-old guard starts to draw near his gate, unbuttons his pants. As the kid comes into view, Clint takes a deep breath, locks eyes with the kid, and pulls his zipper down. It works like a charm—the kid instantly turns two different kinds of red and darts past the door of the cell, presumably to hyperventilate, and Clint gets to do two things: sit and take his first private dump in days, and detach the metal handle from the bucket without being observed. That kid won’t look in Clint’s cell now for **anything** ; Clint doesn’t blame him. He wouldn’t have either, at that kid’s age. Hell, the trick probably would have worked on Clint last year. But, as Clint cheerfully bends the metal handle into a lock jimmy, he realizes that _the trick wouldn’t work on him now_. The thought jolts him with its freshness; it occurs to Clint that being afraid of being a faggot is a weapon, and _it’s a weapon he’s been using wrong for years_. Why in the hell has it never occurred to him to use it against other people instead of on himself? Since Loki, hell even before him, dozens of SHIELD shrinks have tried to get Clint to reflect instead of just reacting. Who knew that all it took was getting thrown in jail by a eighteen year old piece a shit little Junior Nazi? 

 

Clint grins, wide and feral, as he finishes the jimmy—Phil’s gonna be so proud when he tells him about his realization. Specially if Clint remembers not to call himself a faggot, uses a coupla PC words like “homophobia” and “queer” instead. He whistles between his teeth as he buttons up, inspects the walls, floor and ceiling, thinking about what Phil will say. _Welcome to Obvious, Barton, Population You._ No. Phil won’t say that. He never makes Clint feel dumb, even when Clint is legit being dumb. He’ll say something kind, and his eyes’ll go all crinkly the way they do when he’s amused, but then he’ll follow it up with something really sexy, like _I’m glad you realized that about yourself, Clint. Wanna fuck?_ And Clint will want to fuck, of course Clint will always want to fuck, he’d never fucked so much in his life before Phil came along, but even as his fantasy Phil is pushing him up against the wall, the warmth which is filling Clint’s chest has less to do with sex and more to do with pride, a new and unfamiliar pride that’s the opposite of praise because it’s coming from inside him. _Look, sir,_ he wants to say. _I’m finally grabbing the knife by the handle instead of the blade._

 

“As you can see, it’s quite clunky by today’s standards,” says Xavier. “But believe me, in 1964 it was considered state of the art.”  
Coulson and Xavier and Simmons and her angelic escort (whose name, horrifyingly, is _Warren_ ) are standing in the dingy white geodesic dome which houses the very first Cerebro prototype. The room smells faintly of mice. Simmons looks about ready to faint from excitement; Phil privately wonders how long it’s been since any of this equipment was fired up, forgetting for a moment that there is no such thing as a private thought around Xavier.  
  
 _I shan’t worry about that, Agent Coulson,_ Xavier says cheerfully inside Phil’s head. _Worry instead about how we’re going to communicate with your Asgardian friend. I’ve never attempted a meld with an alien before._  
  
Phil looks around doubtfully. The buckets placed here and there to catch drips have leaves floating in them. He thinks he sees a gecko. “You’re positive that we can’t use the current iteration of Cerebro,” he says, out loud. “I understand it’s much more powerful.”  
  
Xavier chuckles, wheeling himself around the central helmet apparatus to whip a large grayish tarp off a control panel. “I am certain, Agent. By the time we built Cerebro II we had already learnt how to filter out non-mutants from the results matrix, and that was over thirty years and six models ago. You must understand, Agent, for our purposes, the noise of nine billion non-mutant consciousnesses was completely overwhelming. Cerebro’s sole purpose was to identify and communicate with mutants. Our communication with non-mutants was purely by accident.”  
  
“How so?” says Phil.  
  
“When we first starting using Cerebro,” Xavier says, patting the helmet, “We were trying to find mutants using a very primitive locator function. But within a week, every non-mutant within five miles was reporting migraine headaches and intrusive thoughts that weren’t theirs. They were mine, my excitement, my greetings to the mutants we were finding. Thank God no one ever discovered what we were doing, or the entire project might have been scrapped. The CIA came up with a brilliant cover story, LSD in the water supply, and it died down. Of course, that’s when we started work on Cerebro II. We haven’t had any problems with nuisance communication since.”  
  
“But won’t there be the same problem now? Do we need to start evacuating Westchester?”  
  
Professor Xavier smiles. “You needn’t bother. My skills have improved somewhat in the intervening years. I intend to remain as silent as possible until I’ve located your six missing team members, and to endeavor to send focused messages only to them. How receptive they will be to those messages, I fear, may vary.”  
  
“Will you perhaps be able to read their captors’ minds?” says Simmons, looking hopeful.  
  
“My darling, I should think it unavoidable,” says Xavier. “As distasteful as the prospect is, I should think knowledge of their intentions would be valuable, would it not?”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
“Well then,” says Xavier. “There’s not a moment to waste, is there? Now, would you take the covers off that control panel over there, and, Warren, be a pet and go outside to make sure the backup generator has quite enough fuel? I’d hate to make contact and then have the power cut out on me.” He beams indulgently at up at Cerebro, then focuses his sharp black-eyed gaze on Phil. “These old machines, you know. Always an engine somewhere in the background, wheezing away. We’re much greener now.”  
  
“Is that so,” says Phil, trying not to consciously register the many different levels of conversational gamesmanship at which he is losing to Professor Xavier. He suspects the sheer number would depress him. Instead, as Xavier wheels himself around the helmet apparatus, pointing at knobs and dials just out of his reach and instructing Simmons on how to calibrate them, Phil does what he does whenever he’s surrounded by technology he doesn’t understand, whether in Stark’s lab or on the bridge of the Helicarrier. He folds his hands nicely in front of his crotch and mentally reorganizes his Cap memorabilia. Always calms him right down.

This time’s by color.

 

 

 

 

Around six o’clock, a young woman delivers a plate of mac and cheese and green beans with a mug of lukewarm water to each captive. She keeps her eyes on the floor and moves like she’s on rails, and she doesn’t speak to anyone at all, not one word, even though every last one of the Avengers try to establish contact with her.  
  
Stark: “You know the last people who tried to do this, it didn’t work out so good for them.”  
  
Bruce: “How long do we have to stay here?”  
  
Thor: “You are fair young to be laboring for such dark forces.”  
  
Cap: “Miss? Are you being held here too?”  
  
Natasha: “Thanks.”  
  
Clint: “Oh, hey, grub.”

 

There’s a little clatter from Clint’s cell as he gets up to take the tray, and Natasha wonders how it is that she knows him so well that she can tell exactly where he is in his bow maintenance routine just from the tiny sounds of his gear as he sets it aside. The food-delivery girl swooshes back past Natasha’s cell, too fast to be pickpocketed as she goes. That’s okay; Natasha’s already managed to snag two Extremis inhalers from passing guards, and if she knows Clint, he’ll be out of his cell and coming by to pick them up within the hour. She lays back on her bunk and closes her eyes, resting her mind and trying to reach the calm blue bubble of space that she uses for meditation. It’s modeled on the caves that sometimes occur at the edge of volcanic islands, a round room with a floor of blue-green water. Over the years, Natasha’s decorated her cave with a few items: an embroidered carpet on a ledge of rock. A pillow. A tea set. But the core elements are the same. Rock walls. A jewel-blue pool at the bottom. And silence. She’s gone to her cave while being beaten and tortured, she’s gone to her cave when she’s scared and alone, she’s even gone to her cave when she’s bored in meetings with SHIELD. It is her place.  
  
 _Agent Romanov._  
  
Natasha’s eyes snap open. She sits up slowly, deliberately. Puts both her feet on the ground. “Who the fuck is this,” she says, flat and cold.  
  
 _My name is Professor Charles Xavier,_ says the voice in her head, clear and yet not audible, a disconcerting sensation that leaves her ears ringing with the silence that should hold a voice. _I am a telepath assisting Agent Coulson of SHIELD in effecting your team’s rescue._  
  
“Prove it,” Natasha says. A pause leaves her mind silent for a moment, and then the voice returns.  
  
 _Agent Coulson says, grapefruit is pink and sometimes green, but never blue._  
  
“Proceed,” says Natasha. Clint, in his cell two doors over, says, “What was that, Tasha?” She ignores him for the moment. He won’t panic if she doesn’t respond right away. She’s trained him well.  
  
 _Thank you. By the way, you needn’t respond to me verbally, and in fact it might be best you didn’t. At the moment, your captors seem not to be paying much attention, but a one-sided conversation does tend to pique people’s interest._  
  
Natasha is silent in response.  
  
 _First things first. Are you in any way hurt or injured?_ the voice asks, courteously.  
  
 _No,_ thinks Natasha. _But can’t you tell that?_  
  
 _As a matter of fact I can,_ says Professor Xavier.  
  
 _Then let’s dispense with the foreplay, shall we?_ thinks Natasha.  
  
 _Very well. Before I can relay information to your entire team, I should like to gain explicit permission to contact your partner. Agent Coulson has informed me that his mind has been accessed before without his permission, which makes my usual introduction less than ideal._  
  
 _I’ll say,_ thinks Natasha, flashing on a very detailed fantasy Clint once shared in which, barehanded, he slowly and methodically smashed Loki’s head into a pulp against the steel rim of a prison toilet. She smiles fondly.  
  
 _Yes,_ says Professor Xavier delicately. _That would be the reaction I am rather hoping to avoid._  
  
 _I see,_ thinks Natasha. _Please hold._ She goes to the door of her cell and speaks to Clint in a low tone, watching the guard on the other side of the Coliseum for any sign that he can hear them.  
  
“Hey you.”  
  
She hears Clint swallow noisily and set down his fork. “Yeah?”  
  
“Xavier wants to talk to you,” she says under her breath, her eyes fixed on the guard, who appears to be playing Angry Birds on his phone.  
  
“X-what? Really?”  
  
“You heard me,” she mutters. “He’s asking permission.”  
  
“Well, fuck,” whispers Clint back. If she strains, she can just see his forearms resting against the bars of his cell’s door. There’s a long pause while he thinks it over. “Yeah, sure,” he finally says, his voice the most strained approximation of casual she’s ever heard from Clint. “More the merrier, I guess.”  
  
 _You’ve got permission_ , thinks Natasha at Xavier.  
  
 _Thank you, Agent Romanov._  
  
 _His mind is my concern,_ she thinks, and then takes a little mental stroll through some of her… career highlights.  
  
 _Understood,_ says Xavier before vanishing completely, leaving Natasha’s mind-cave silent. It’s never been less peaceful.

 

 

 

 _Hello, Agent Barton._  
  
“Uh, hello,” says Clint, stretching and clenching his fingers in an attempt to keep himself calm. It’s not working.  
  
 _Thank you. I appreciate your agreeing to speak with me. May I explain the limits of our conversation?_  
  
“Sure, uh. Sure. Go ahead.”  
  
 _Thank you. Firstly, you need not address me out loud. You may if it makes you feel comfortable, but I would suggest that in your current situation, speaking aloud might not be the best option._  
  
“So how do I talk to you?” says Clint.  
  
 _Simply think, Agent Barton, and I will hear. However, I must emphasize that in your case my telepathy is limited strictly to communication. I can hear what you think and, if you wish, see what you see. I can act as a messenger between yourself and your teammates, but I cannot change your decisions or influence your actions._  
  
Clint caught that. Everyone thinks he doesn’t listen, but he listens. _In my case,_ he thinks.  
  
 _Yes, Agent Barton. In your case._  
  
 _What’s limiting you to just communication?_ thinks Barton.  
  
 _A common sense of decency, for one,_ says Xavier, a bit quickly.  
  
 _Not good enough,_ thinks Barton back, just as fast.  
  
 _And Agent Coulson’s express wishes._  
  
Clint thinks about it. _All right,_ he thinks.  
  
 _Wonderful. I am going to leave you now in order to update Agent Coulson and investigate your captors’ intentions. Once I have ascertained their plans, I will return to inform you. I will endeavor to knock before entering, though I hope you won’t mind if I alert you to any immediate physical threats without preamble._  
  
 _OK,_ thinks Clint, and just like that, Xavier’s gone.

 

 

 

Xavier removes the helmet and beams at Phil. “Success, Agents,” he says.  
  
“With everyone? Even Thor?” breathes Simmons.  
  
“Yes. And I must say, his mind has a brilliance I have never before encountered. There is a breathtaking acuity and sharpness of perception there. One would call it insight, were that not so hopelessly inadequate a term.”  
  
“We are talking about Thor, here,” says Phil.  
  
Xavier just smiles indulgently. “According to Mr. Odinson, telepathy is not an innate rarity on Asgard, but is considered an art that can be taught. Apparently his mother was quite skilled at it.”  
  
Phil has nothing to say to this. Xavier beams happily, and the moment goes on for some time until Phil figures out that he’s not going to volunteer more information. “And HYDRA?” he prompts.  
  
“Oh good heavens, yes. They’re all eating dinner right now,” says Xavier.  
  
Phil starts to feel a throbbing behind his left eye. _“And?”_ he prompts, and even Simmons, standing behind Xavier, has the good grace to look a little scared.  
  
“And, they are thinking about what people think about when they eat,” says Xavier.  
  
 _“Which **is?** ”_  
  
“Sex,” Xavier responds cheerfully. Behind him, Jemma squeaks, turning bright pink.  
  
“Sex?” says Phil, weakly. This is it. He is going to take that manager’s position at the Georgetown area Foot Locker, see if he doesn’t. They get discounts on apparel.  
  
“Oh yes, my dear agent. The vast majority of human beings revert to primal fantasy when they are meeting their primal needs. Furthermore, besides being terrorists, your HYDRA members are workers, and workers universally take their lunch breaks as a welcome opportunity to mentally rest, fantasize, reminisce, plan new flirtations. Most of your terrorists are at present, about as useful as a cafeteria full of seventh graders would be.”  
  
Phil takes a deep breath. “And how long before their…. higher functions return?” he asks.  
  
“Oh, half an hour at the very least,” says Xavier. “They are just now sitting down. Long enough for us to contact the other members of your organization and begin coordinating a rescue mission to New Jersey.”  
  
“New Jersey?” says Phil.  
  
“Why, yes.” Xavier looks briefly puzzled before his face clears. “But of course. You have not been able to safely communicate with your helicopter crew. My apologies. Your team is being held underneath the Meadowlands Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.”  
  
 _Maria is going to throw a conniption,_ Phil thinks, and Xavier’s smile widens.  
  
“I do believe, Agent, that she already has,” he says.

 

 

 

 

 

“OKAY,” hollers Maria Hill, barreling at full speed out of the elevator of the 47th Street station and bounding up on top of the closest desk. “EVERYONE SHUT UP AND LISTEN.”  
  
“What she said, people!” Darnell hollers from behind her, unzipping his flight suit dramatically as he hits the floor just a moment behind Maria. “Eyes front and center!”  
  
“Milking it a little much, Darnell?” Maria mutters between her teeth.  
  
“Any chance I get,” says Darnell through a smile.  
  
“THE AVENGERS ARE BEING HELD IN AN UNDERGROUND BUNKER UNDERNEATH THE MEADOWLANDS, AT AN UNKNOWN DEPTH WITH AN UNKNOWN NUMBER OF HOSTILES,” hollers Maria. “WE ARE SCRAMBLING A TEAM TO GET THEM OUT. WHO WANTS ON THAT TEAM?”  
  
Every hand in the room shoots up, and Maria wishes their cell networks weren’t maybe-horribly-compromised right now, because she would _so_ send a picture of this to Coulson if she could.  
  
“ALL RIGHT THEN. HOW MANY OF YOU ARE TRAINED IN CLOSE-QUARTERS COMBAT? JUST YOU PUT YOUR HANDS UP. OK. I WANT THREE OF YOU ON EVERY TEAM. How many teams does that give us?”  
  
“Sixteen,” says Darnell after a bit of counting.  
  
“Too many, we only have twelve fully armored vehicles without going out to Paterson. OK, who here can drive an armored truck? OK, looks like we’re taking all twelve armored trucks, drivers grab your keys off the board near the door. First four teams to be geared and ready get an extra combat specialist! But NO COMMS. That means no radios, no cell phones, no pagers, no nothing. If you haven’t already given them to the burn team, your comms go in the wastebasket by the door, Julian hold it up, thank you Julian, don’t bother labeling them because we’re going to wipe them—” at this a minor moan sets up from the group, and Fury hollers from the side door: “NO BITCHING ABOUT THE WIPE! IF YOU TRY TO HANG ONTO A _COMPROMISED COMM_ , YOU WILL BE CONSTRUED AS A _TREASONOUS MOTHERFUCKER!!!_ ANYONE WANNA DIE FOR ANGRY BIRDS TODAY?”  
  
The moan settles right down and Maria continues: “We are going **silent** on this op. That means hand signals and other in-person comms _only!_ If you hear a voice inside your head, it is Professor Xavier sharing information—listen to him! If anyone here has never engaged with a telepath before, speak to Rina Venkateshwaran in the back, she can brief you on protocol; Rina, raise your hand! Everyone see her? Are there any questions?!?”  
  
There follows the sort of stunned and slightly damp silence associated with any gathering on which Maria’s ever had to turn the information fire hose full-blast, and which she’s consequently learned to ignore. She claps her hands together. “Alright then. Gear up!” And hops down from the desk. Darnell looks at her with a new degree of regard. “They told me you were something,” he says.  
  
“I’m something, all right,” says Maria, heading for the door.

 

 

 

Clint’s just about got his cell door unlocked when the first armored limousine full of suited, dangerous-looking men arrives at the bottom of the coliseum, via the same ramp the Avengers were brought down. Clint is guessing they’re not HYDRA—there’s a lot of introductions and shaking hands, but no rank-related saluting like there would be if these were members of the same organization. Plus, all these new dudes are Asian, and HYDRA’s got a distinctly Aryans-only-need-apply vibe, so far, that Clint’s detected. He senses an ominous stillness from Natasha’s cell and surmises that she’s watching just as closely; he’s about to ask her opinion on the identity of HYDRA’s guests when the next limo arrives, and then the next and the next and the next. It’s like a really creepy check-in at a luxury hotel; every limo has a driver and that two-engined diesel resonance common to armoured Mercs. Clint sees a woman in a creepy gold mask; a few nasty-looking thugs; _another_ dude wearing a mask (seriously, is this mask thing like a bad-guy trend this season? Is looking like a metal-plated douche _the_ thing in Ibiza or wherever these scumbags hang?) and a no-shit hooded cape; some mutants in sharp suits. “This day just keeps gettin’ better and better,” he mutters to himself, and right on cue hears a chipper British voice inside his head.  
  
 _Knock, knock._  
  
 _I hope you know who all these assholes are,_ thinks Clint.  
  
 _Unfortunately, I do. You are looking at the representatives of five major criminal and/or terrorist organizations. They are here tonight for an auction._  
  
 _What’s up for sale?_ thinks Clint.  
  
 _I'm afraid that’s the bad news,_ thinks Xavier. _You are._


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter would not have been even marginally coherent or cohesive without the inestimable talents of JenTheSweetie, who is the dearest beta ever to have beta'd. Everything cool about this chapter is hers. Everything screwed is undoubtedly mine. She has been the most delightful discovery of my fifteen plus years in fandom. If it had taken thirty to find a writing partner this good, it would have been worth it.

It’s just white noise in Clint’s head for a few minutes, but when he comes back into himself, Xavier is there, patiently waiting.

_May I pass on a message from Agent Coulson?_ he asks, and Clint nods _yes_ so hard he nearly pulls something and the next thing he hears/feels inside his head is Coulson, or a pretty close approximation of Coulson if you were hearing him through the ears of an older British dude with a massive electric mindreading helmet covering his head and a lot of static from Cerebro buzzing in the background: “ _Clint._ Clint, we are not going to allow that to happen. We know where you are and are scrambling a team right now to come get you. Just sit tight and do not, I repeat do _not_ do anything to piss these people off.”

Clint smiles at that. _But I already volunteered for pissing-off-the-science-Nazis duty_ , he thinks back at Xavier, who apparently relays the thought straight to Coulson, because the next thing he hears isn’t very nice. When Xavier’s mind-voice comes back, he sounds amused. _Now that we’ve got that straightened out,_ he says, _I am going to inform the rest of your team of the situation. Are there any messages you would like me to pass along?_

Clint thinks about it for a second. _Tell Stark his beard’s stupid,_ he finally settles on.

Xavier chuckles. _Very well, Agent Barton._ ...aaaaand he’s gone. Clint blinks once, twice, shakes his head like to get water out of his ear. Creepy.

 

 

 

 

Xavier spends a few moments concentrating with his eyes closed while Phil fidgets. When the Professor’s eyes open again, they’re clear and amused. He moves the helmet aside and wheels himself forward, looking up at Phil. “Agent, your team is holding up beautifully, and my readings of the situation assure me that we are quite safe taking a little break for tea. Won’t you join me?”

Phil’s eyes flick, involuntarily, to Cerebro, hanging still and empty as a jellyfish in the ocean.

“I promise, your team is quite safe for the moment,” says Xavier. “I’ve shared all the information I can gather with your director, the auction is not scheduled to begin for another hour, and your rescue team is at least forty-five minutes away in current traffic. Let’s allow the young ones to take a walk round the gardens while we have our tea.” Xavier kindly leaves the _sit down before you fall down_ unspoken by either mind or voice, and Phil knows when he’s beat. Keeping a straight face is a paramount Coulson family value, but Phil’s mother has never met Charles Xavier, and this has been one _hell_ of a day.

“All right,” he agrees, and allows himself to be led to the mansion as Jemma and Warren wander towards the gardens, where they will doubtless engage in awkward, adorable flirtation. Phil momentarily wishes himself back at the kids’ table, wishes he were young and low-ranking and utterly superfluous to the exhausting business of diplomacy. It’s a cowardly thought, unworthy of the rank and resources he’s worked to gain, and he tries to snuff it out with all the haste and furtiveness of an altar boy trying to put out an unexpected curtain fire. But Xavier catches it, like Xavier catches everything, and as they enter the sunny, book-cluttered room where tea is already laid out, the Professor says, “My dear Agent, surely you must be aware that your urge is not borne out of a cowardly wish to avoid taking responsibility for the lives of your co-workers.”

“It’s not?” says Phil, because, like always, Xavier has caught him wrong-footed.

“Certainly not,” says Xavier, wheeling himself around to the empty side of the tea table. “It is, rather, based in the fear that you will prove unequal to the task of protecting them. A fear based upon a rather severe underestimation of your own abilities, I might add.”

“Well, thank you,” says Phil. He’s pretty sure he’s been complimented. He’s also pretty sure his mother has a fridge magnet with words to the same effect.

“Our greatest fear is not that we are helpless. It is that we are powerful beyond measure,” Xavier supplies, and now Phil _knows_ he’s being fucked with.

“Get out of my mother’s kitchen,” he says, without much real heat, and Xavier chuckles. “You must forgive me. I do so rarely interact with non-mutants. It is refreshing to encounter someone whose mind is unmarked by the characteristic emotional scarring of an early realization that they were different, Other.”

“Really,” says Phil drily. “The Boy Scouts of America might have something different to say about that.”

“Nevertheless,” says Xavier, setting his tea down. “Agent. You are a gay man born to the height of the AIDS epidemic, who nevertheless grew up with a strong, positive self-image, forming close relationships throughout your life characterized by earned loyalty and open communication, and found job satisfaction in the military during two hot wars and a period of widespread social hostility towards those of our orientation.”

Phil blinks.

“Agent, has it honestly never occurred to you that you are rather _extraordinarily_ well-adjusted?”

“I’ve been lucky,” Phil says.

“Luck,” says Xavier, “is only part of the picture.”

 

 

 

 

About fifteen minutes have passed, and Clint’s getting antsy. He knows there’s nothing he can do until Coulson or Hill or Fury give orders by way of Xavier, but he hates sitting on his hands while assholes in masks pass around the wine and cheese, or whatever assholes in masks do before superhero auctions.

“Tasha?” he asks, quietly, and hears the slishing sound of her knife-sharpening stop. Tasha sharpens when she’s bored, carries a little whetstone around in her belt for occasions just like this. Stakeouts. HR meetings. Roller coasters.

“Yeah?”

“You ever think we coulda had normal lives?”

He can **hear** Tasha’s blink from here, nevermind that Clint’s hearing isn’t that great. Tasha’s you-must-be-kidding blink is the kind of thing that can peel wallpaper. After a pause, he hears her knife-sharpening resume.

‘What brought that question on?” she asks.

Clint shrugs. “I dunno. Might mean getting kidnapped a whole hell of a lot less often.”

“You do suck at not getting kidnapped,” Tasha agrees easily. “What was that one time with the Basque Liberation Party?”

“Hey, that doesn’t count, I was drunk and they had a _unicycle_ ,” says Clint.

“So it’s not a real kidnapping if you escape on a child’s toy?”

“Whatever,” grumbles Clint. “I’m great at unicycles.” It occurs to him that Tasha still hasn’t answered his question. “But I mean. Doesn’t it ever bother you? Like, what we could’ve maybe done with our lives if we hadn’t been…” He cannot say the word “superheroes” out loud, it is _just too weird_. “If we hadn’t been us?” he finishes lamely.

There’s another pause, a significant one. He knows Natasha, too, knows her posture and expression as she’s working out just what to tell him.

Finally, she speaks: “Try not to let it get to you.”

“That’s it?” says Clint, incredulously, but Natasha’s back to knife-sharpening and he knows she won’t answer him again, not while she’s in one of these crazy fucking Russian fucking moods. He throws his hands up in the air and goes back to his gear. At least Norma Jean’s in the mood to talk to him today.

 

 

 

 

“I cannot fucking believe this,” Maria mutters. She and the other eleven armored vehicles are sitting in wall-to-wall gridlock that’s backed up almost all the way to Kennedy Boulevard and shows no signs of loosening. With all the comms out, the other drivers have resorted to more traditional forms of traffic-jam communication. Pierczynski, locked into the left-hand lane two spaces ahead of Hill, leans on the horn, a long, frustrated blast. Walcott, in the right-hand lane, catches Maria’s eye, gives her the “can you believe this shit” face encompassing the nightmare ahead of them; she gives Walcott a “what’re you gonna do” gesture before rolling the window back up to save the air conditioning.

“How come I can never get WFAN in these trucks?” Darnell complains. Maria reaches over, gives the radio a carefully calibrated punch right above the balance dial, and Howie Rose comes on: “And it looks like Charlie Morton is going to go for the intentional walk on David Wright—”

“Aw, c’mon, you fuckin’ coward—” Darnell says, just as Maria explodes with “Of all the _pussified_ fuckin things to do—” They catch each others’ eye and lapse into an embarrassed silence, both blushing a bit.

“Jinx,” offers Withey from the backseat.

 

 

 

“I don’t know why you find the suggestion so surprising,” Xavier says mildly, stirring a new lump of sugar into his tea. “You are, after all, surrounded by them in your daily life.”

Phil blinks again. It’s all he’s been able to do for the last three minutes. Outside the study window, mutant children are playing a game that involves a lot of sudden disappearances and reapparitions. Xavier ignores the shrieking and occasional poof of fire and continues beaming at Phil like he hasn’t just flustered the agent into complete, embarrassed silence.

“I would ask if you had been tested for the mutant gene, but Cerebro makes that screening quite redundant,” he says. “This is simply the next logical possibility.”

“Me being a superhero,” says Phil. He is never, ever, going to tell Maria or Nick about this conversation. Scratch that. He is never going to tell _anyone_ about this conversation. He will take this conversation _to the grave_.

“Agent, I have studied outliers all my life. Do you know what is the second most common ability bestowed by mutation?”

“No.”

“It is the ability _to hide_. Camouflage, both social and physical, is perhaps the most crucial ability. Without the means to conceal oneself in plain sight, any outlier stands a very poor chance of winning life’s harsh genetic lottery.”

Phil takes this in. “What’s the first most common ability?” he asks around the rim of his teacup.

Xavier smiles. “Heightened sensitivity to the taste of blueberries.”

Phil looks at him.

“I assure you, I’m not joking. This occurs in over 98 percent of mutants. It’s usually paired with something else a bit more dramatic, such as infrared vision or telekinesis, but the blueberry mutation is a near-universal. Some of us can detect the relevant flavenoids at concentrations of less than thirteen parts per million.”

“I’m allergic,” says Phil.

Xavier smiles good-naturedly. “Behold, how Cerebro is laid low by the simplest of screenings.”

Phil can’t help it. Everything about Xavier is obnoxious, presumptuous, blinded by privilege. His implication that Phil could not possibly be as well-adjusted as he is without superheroism is insulting. His accent is posh and his school is posher and his whole thing about not having phones is pretentious. Being around Xavier makes Phil understand how Clint feels being around Tony Stark. He _wants_ to dislike Xavier, and yet, somehow, he just… can’t.

_Believe me, Agent. I feel the same about you._

 

 

 

 

Bruce has now spent a solid twenty minutes meditating to bring himself down from the panic he worked himself into after Professor Xavier left his mind, a panic which nearly induced the third incident of the day. “Stupid,” he tells himself. “Are you _looking_ to break the record?” Bruce never used to talk to himself—he always thought it was an affectation struck by mediocre scientists hoping to be mistaken for eccentric geniuses. Then the other guy… happened, and suddenly talking to himself seemed like the best way to make sure he _was_ himself. He tries to pass the time by listing all the possible groups that could want him dead or strapped to a lab table in alphabetical order, but sort of runs dry after T. He has a bad feeling about SHIELD’s rescue attempt, but then again it’s been about seven years since he didn’t have the King Of All Bad Feelings riding shotgun. He has sort of forgotten what it’s like _not_ to have a bad feeling. It’s not helping that almost all the guards have gone to dinner—Bruce isn’t frightened of large numbers of well-armed men, but any organization that thinks they can keep him in a cage with four teenagers, three of whom are openly texting right now, _clearly knows something he doesn’t_. Judging by the nervous pacing from two cells over, Stark’s read the writing on the wall too.

Bruce goes to the door of his cell. “You busy?” he whispers.

Stark flips up the visor on his helmet. “Nah. Just talkin’ to J. He’s running the odds.”

“Do I wanna know?’ Bruce says.

Stark shrugs. “They’re actually not bad. Sixty, seventy percent.”

“Is that all of us?” says Bruce.

“Oh, you want the individual breakdown? Easy. Thor’s running a hundred cause we don’t know if anything can kill him, same goes for you too, big guy. Me, I’ve got a proven track record in scenarios like this so I’m like ninety, ninety-five percent. Cap, he’s tough but he hasn’t got the can, so he’s getting seventy percent odds, which I think are an underestimation, if I were in Vegas I’d be laying heavy money on Cap right now, and Clint and Natasha are, uh, lower.” Stark sniffs.

“How much lower?” a whisper comes from two floors up, and Bruce realizes that Steve’s been quietly listening.

“Uhm,” Stark trails off, and Steve’s voice comes back down, annoyed. “You said the overall team percentage was sixty, seventy percent. _How much lower?”_

“Jesus,” Bruce hisses, “Would you two keep it down?”

“I can’t help having enhanced hearing,” Steve says.

Stark rolls his eyes expressively at Bruce, then jerks his thumb in the direction of the teenaged guard on the second floor who is currently using the mirror function on his iPhone’s camera to check the progress of a zit. Bruce smiles, and Stark turns his “get a load of this” thumb gesture into a jerking-off motion, and Bruce has to drop his head and muffle his laughter. Bruce knows it’s wrong to wish someone else into the nightmare that is his life, but he can’t help thinking how good it would have been to have Stark around about five years ago, when Bruce was living in a cave in Ecuador and subsisting off of rainwater and fruit bats. (Not fruit. Fruit bats. They were sluggish in the daytime and easy to catch and roast.) He has a feeling that Tony’s company could have made even that hellish experience, with the damp and the dripping and the everpresent nightmarish swarms of gargantuan mosquitoes, tolerable. (Though maybe not the bats—some things are beyond tolerating.)

Steve, who either can’t see the Tony Stark Show or isn’t amused, sighs pointedly.

“Barton’s running at ten percent, Romanov at twenty,” Stark says.

“Why’s that?” Bruce asks, his curiosity getting the better of him. (Which it’s occurred to him would make a decent biography title: Curiosity Got The Better Of Him: The Unauthorized Bruce Banner Story.)

Stark shifts uncomfortably. “JARVIS just gives me the numbers, not the reasoni—”

_“Stark,”_ Cap’s voice comes ringing down, in a tone that brooks no argument.

“It’s because you can’t force people with their skills to work for you,” Bruce says. “Not that, uh,” and he gestures sheepishly at Stark’s suit.

“None taken,” Stark says easily, taking Bruce’s meaning effortlessly. There’s a pause while everyone processes the kind of motive that an organization would need to bid on a pair of uncontrollable assassins, a silence which darkens as everyone contemplates the type of enemies that Clint and Natasha might have accumulated over the years. Bruce, whose personal enemies list includes several governments, finds he doesn’t much enjoy contemplating this. Bruce can see the same grim arithmetic asserting itself on Stark’s face: Clint and Natasha have almost no chance of survival beyond the auction, assuming they even made it to their buyers’ cars without a bullet to the back of the neck. That’s the best-case scenario, a quick death—worst-case scenario is their sale to a buyer with the means, motivation and taste for protracted torture. Bruce can hear Cap standing up and slapping the dust off his palms, a gesture which carries its own meaning. He shifts inside his skin, feeling the other guy starting to take an interest in proceedings. Stark is leaning on his bars, tapping out a hasty, bored-looking tattoo with his fingers that Bruce doesn’t have to know Morse Code to know _is_ Morse Code, and Cap’s tapping back on _his_ bars, and Bruce can’t see or hear what’s happening in the sixth floor cells where Clint and Natasha are incarcerated, but the sheer silence from their quarters is pretty telling.

“You know, I bet Agent Agent’s bout ready to pop a sprocket,” Tony says abruptly.

“I mean seriously. Here he and Katniss were just starting to get their issues ironed out, moving along nicely, not that I’m taking **all** the credit for that or anything—”

Bruce snorts a little.

“—But seriously, it doesn’t hurt at all to finally be in the same building, you know. As far as getting on the same page. Or uh. Bed.” Stark sniffs. Drums his fingers a little on the bars. “What do you think? Huh?”

“About what, Stark?” says Bruce, not following.

“Just, y’know, all our little lovebirds. Team… _chemistry_ ,” says Tony, oddly loudly, and the drumming of his iron-clad fingers against the gate doesn’t quite obscure the soft _unh_ of a guard getting his neck cleanly snapped about six floors up. Bruce’s eyes pop open and his back goes rigid as he waits for an Extremis-based explosion and rush of superheated air, but there isn’t any. Just quiet, if you don’t count Stark’s running commentary. “I mean, y’know, at first I was a little nervous when Natasha started wearing all that red leather lingerie around the Tower…” and oh, OH, now Bruce gets it. He frantically racks his mind for something to contribute to the scattered monologue that’s already stopped half the (male, teenaged) guards in their tracks and turned their attention directly to Stark.

“—I mean you can imagine what happens when she breaks the whip out,” Stark’s saying. “You think she and Fury are doing it on the regular?”

“Uh, I thought Widow was a lesbian,” Bruce offers wildly, and hears Stark chuckle darkly from two cells over, a _nice to see you’ve joined us_ chuckle. He just hopes to God Natasha can’t hear them as Stark responds, “Ooooh, now there’s a rumor I hadn’t heard. Do elaborate?”

“Her and Maria Hill,” says Bruce. “I heard once in an elevator that got stuck. Apparently there was security footage of her, uh…” his brain grinds to a halt as he tries to think of a phrasing that _will_ distract their teenaged guards but _won’t_ result in Natasha killing him in his sleep.

“Yodeling in the canyon?” says Stark, who is apparently afraid of no such thing.

A rich, booming chuckle comes from above them. “Indeed, I too had heard such a thing, though I must confess not in such poetical terms.” Thor is the **_best_**. Bruce can already see the guards’ ears perking up.

“On Asgard,” Thor continues, “Our women strive to outdo each other in feats of satisfaction in the bedchamber, as our warriors do on field of battle.”

“Oh yeah?” says Tony, his casual tone belaying the most heroic struggle to maintain a straight face ever attempted by man. “How’s that?”

“Yeah, Thor, I’d be interested in this, too,” says Bruce, digging his nails into his palms.

“It is a source of many fair hours of pleasurable observance for us all, I can assure you,” Thor says, his voice deep and amused and kingly. _Shit_ , he’s good at this. Every single guard in the coliseum has now stopped walking and is craning to hear the conversation. One kid is leaning out so far from the fourth floor that he’s about to fall off the walkway.

“It is customary for the more experienced of them to initiate the least into womanhood, usually through the gifting of several intricately engraved cylinders of increasing size…” Thor continues, and if there are flickers of movement and another abruptly silenced grunt from the shadowed sixth floor, no one below notices. As Thor warms up and starts adding hand gestures and miming to The Penthouse Letter: Asgard Edition, two shadows slip from the sixth to the fifth floor, and a dark pair of gloved hands lower silently over the balcony towards the leaning fourth floor guard’s head. Bruce pretends to aspirate some drool and doubles over in a coughing fit to cover the noise of the guard’s neck snapping, and tries not to track with his eyes as the body is yanked neatly upwards and out of sight. Tony isn’t even pretending not to be enjoying this—he’s asking Thor leading questions to keep the stories rolling, tossing in probably-real anecdotes from parties at Fashion Week and Monte Carlo and the America’s Cup (Bruce thinks that if he were Pepper, he wouldn’t have had Tony tested so much as _autoclaved_ ), and dropping just enough famous names to keep the second-floor zit-checker focused on him until it is _conclusively_ too late.

“Thanks, boys,” Natasha says, winding up the garrote she used on the last guard and neatly stashing it in a small compartment on her belt that Bruce is just going to have to think of as the garroting kit now.

“Hey, Tony, was that true about Adriana Lima and the half a pound of bananas?” says Barton, rappelling down from the fifth floor and getting slapped in the back of the head by Natasha on his way past the second. “OW, woman! _What?!!_ It wasn’t me who said it!”

“It didn’t count, Tony was just distracting the guards,” she says primly, and Stark aims a smug look at Barton which Natasha somehow senses even though her back is turned, because her next words are delivered in a tone that Bruce hasn’t heard since Sister Agatha found a copy of the Kama Sutra in his desk in the tenth grade: “ _Isn’t that right,_ _Tony?”_

Tony apparently never had a Sister Agatha. “Whatever you want to believe, sweetheart. Wanna come unlock my cage?”

“I like Cap and Thor better,” she says, heading towards their cells.

“You just keep telling yourself that,” says Tony. Barton pointedly opens Bruce’s cell first, a gesture ignored by Stark, who comes strolling out like they’ve got all the time in the world. “So what’s next, kids?” he asks, adjusting his gauntlets like they’re cufflinks.

“We leave the way we came,” says Steve, coming down the stairs in full Cap mode, Natasha and Thor right behind him. “They won’t be guarding the motor entrance as heavily now that all their guests have arrived.”

“Are you certain?” says Thor, visibly disappointed at the idea of encountering little resistance.

Steve yanks the cowl over his head. “Not at all.” He nods briskly and walks off, heading up the ramp with a determined strut, and Tony gives the rest of the team a what’re-you-gonna-do look before dropping his faceplate. “You heard the Cap,” he says, firing up his boots. “Let’s go kill some Nazis.” He shoots up the ramp ahead of Cap like a loosened bottle rocket. Clint’s next, jogging and nocking an arrow at the same time. Thor glances at Natasha, who crouches, inviting him with a glance to a schoolyard-style race. They take off giggling, swiping at each other like children, and as Bruce unclenches, lets the other guy come rushing out, it is, for the first time, with the sensation of _laughter_.

 

 

 

 

“Do I look like I’m laughing to you?” snaps Maria to the teenager behind the desk of the box office on the west side of the Meadowlands. “We need a full evacuation, and we need it **_now_**.”

“Ma’am, even if you had the authority to order that _andI’mnotsayingthatyoudon’t_ ,” the teenager hastily interjects, having already learnt at badgepoint exactly where SHIELD fell on the chain of command in relationship to Homeland Security, the FBI, the CIA, God and his mother—“I wouldn’t know how to order a stadium-wide evacuation.”

“Isn’t there a fire alarm around here somewhere you can pull?” says Darnell, who has been playing the good cop/voice of reason to Maria’s bad cop/voice of homicidal mania for several minutes now. It’s to Darnell that the kid addresses a pleading look to. “If I pull a fire alarm and there’s no fire, I’ll get shitcanned and I really need this job.”

Maria’s heard enough. She reaches over to Darnell and yanks open one of the many Velcro’d pockets on the front of his flight suit.

“Hey! What’re you—it’s not even our first date yet!” yelps Darnell, and Maria rolls her eyes, continuing to root around violently in Darnell’s pockets until she finds what she’s looking for. A Bic.

“How’d you know I’d have one?” asks Darnell as Maria flicks the Bic on.

“Eight years and I still wake up tasting Kools,” she replies, scanning the many posters decorating the outside of the kid’s glass cubicle. The kid, who’s snapped to what’s about to happen but who’s too terrified of Maria to stop it, looks like he’s about to throw up.

Maria makes her selection— _what is it with this day and Justin Bieber_ —and yanks down the poster, crumpling it up and applying the Bic to the edge, waiting until it starts to smoulder and give off black smoke. She looks at the kid, holding up the burning poster.

“Now you’ve got a fire. Pull the damn alarm.”

 

 

 

 

They’ve only made it up one level of the long, circular drive, encountering a suspicious lack of resistance, when the shoe Clint was waiting for drops.

_Knock, knock,_ says Professor Xavier, and before Clint can even give the go-ahead he hears Coulson’s voice, about as mad as Coulson ever gets.

“Hawkeye, **what was that I said** about sitting tight and waiting for evac?”

_Cap’s plan, talk to him,_ thinks Clint.

“I’m talking to **you** , Agent,” fires back Coulson.

_Are you gonna ask me if the other Avengers jumped off a bridge, would I jump too?_ thinks Clint, startling and drawing at what turns out to be a cat, scooting away underneath a parked car. He hears a muffled crash through Xavier’s telepathy.

_He has just made a serious attempt upon the life of a trashcan, Agent Barton_ , thinks Xavier over a background of “—assume if Stark **did** jump off a bridge—” and “—rescuing **your** redneck ass—”, _and is now painting a rather vivid portrait of your character. I assure you, it is not complimentary._

_Yeah, people tend to react that way when I’m being awesome,_ thinks Clint.

“Oh, you are SO NOT AWESOME RIGHT NOW, HAWKEYE,” rants Coulson in the background, and Clint grimaces. _Can you maybe not broadcast **everything** I think to him?_

_Sorry,_ replies Xavier cheerfully, not sounding the least bit sorry about it. _On the positive side, he is now focused solely on his irritation with you, which leaves me free to inform you that your plan has been anticipated and stands a very low chance of succeeding. You are going to encounter heavy resistance starting around the third floor, and although the guards are under strict no-kill orders until such time as you can be sold at auction, they do outnumber you by a significant percentage and are heavily armed._

_Peachy. But why are you telling me this?_ thinks Clint. _I’m not the one in charge._

Xavier sighs, a weird sensation in Clint’s head. _I am telling you this, Agent, because Captain Rogers is convinced that this plan is the only chance to preserve your and Agent Romanov’s lives and is therefore unwilling to be dissuaded, Thor is looking forward to a great battle in which he does not believe he can be defeated, Doctor Banner in his current form is quite combative, and Mister Stark is singularly unwilling to listen to reason._

Clint caught that. Everyone thinks he doesn’t listen, but he listens. _What about Natasha,_ he thinks, and Xavier’s silence may as well be a giant blinking billboard. Clint’s great at silences. _She’s afraid,_ he thinks, and Xavier’s continued silence confirms it. Shit. If Natasha’s afraid of something, it’s a real thing. Clint curses himself for not being more tuned in to Tasha’s frequency today. He really needs to get his head in the game.

_Indeed, Agent Barton, I would concur, especially as your team is about to walk into—_

and Clint hears the first burst of gunfire above him, and Stark’s high-pitched repulsor whine, and he picks up his head and he starts to _run_. As he rounds the curve, he sees two HYDRA Jeeps already blasted up on their sides, and Tasha sheltering behind the left-hand one. He takes the right. She signs to him: thirty-plus hostiles. Clint peeks over the top of his Jeep’s roof. Hulk is standing in the middle of the kill box, getting pummeled from all sides by small arms rounds, which he swats at like they’re biting flies. Stark is darting back and forth, weaving in and out of the support columns that hold up the roof of the ramp, blasting at the HYDRA guards whenever he gets a shot. Thor, a little ways up the ramp, is also sheltering behind a car, winding up his hammer and sending it out for quick, boomerang-like hits, which don’t seem to be working as well as usual—each HYDRA guard is knocked down, sure, but after a surprisingly short refractory period, they’re getting back up, sometimes rotating disjointed limbs back into place, and charging back into battle. The guards are shouting to each other in German, something about _“bringen den Feuerspucker”_ which Clint really doesn’t need a translation for but which Xavier helpfully provides a translation for anyway:

_Agent Barton, they are going to quote “bring the fire”—_

“Yeah, I got that buddy!” Clint shrieks as the first blast of superheated science-Nazi dragon-breath licks over the roofs of the cars, forgetting for the moment that Xavier can hear him anyway and _shit_ that is hot. “Tell me something I don’t know!”

_They are not trying to kill you, Agent Barton. They are trying to herd you back down to the containment area._

“Sorta feels like they’re trying to kill me!” Clint hollers, nocking an arrow and putting it straight through the throat of one of the firebreathers—which is surprisingly ineffective, as the shaft just melts away, the glowing hole sealing up around it. The science-Nazi looks surprised for a moment, then pissed, and Clint has to duck fast as a retaliatory jet of fire plumes past his ear.

_They are not. If they were, you would already be dead. But if you do not convince your team to stop fighting, they will rapidly run out of options and may burn you quite badly._

“Shit,” pants Clint. He peeks around the bumper of the car and sees the hostiles edging down the ramp, one drawing breath and aiming a fiery gout at the concrete directly in front of the Hulk’s feet. The Hulk bellows and leaps backwards, pounding his fists on the floor in front of him, cracking the concrete and making the whole ramp shake. Undeterred, the firebreathers keep marching forwards, aiming jets of flame at the floor and ceiling, where they spread out, creating a rippling quilt of fire. Stark darts back and forth like a shimmering dragonfly in the heat, testing weapon after weapon on the flamethrowers—each sets them back a little, but they recover and keep marching forward implacably. Clint draws a deep breath.

_Ok, Prof,_ he thinks at Xavier. _Here goes nothing._

“We gotta pull back!” he hollers over the top of his car. “Stark! Cap! This isn’t working!”

He sees Tasha shoot a questioning look at him, then put the pieces together re: Xavier. She nods grimly and slots another clip into place, and Clint notices that her hands are shaking. Damn, she really is rattled.

“Now, guys!” he hollers. “These cars are gonna blow soon!” He’s not even exaggerating; the car he’s sheltering behind is starting to rattle and ping ominously as the heat from the firebreathers expands the metal. Once the gas tank goes, every other vehicle in this fucking corridor is going to daisy-chain off, with or without the help of the dragon-Nazis. Cap’s already walking backwards, and Thor and Hulk are following his lead, but Stark’s another story. “Wait a minute, Legolas, I think I got this,” he mutters, his voice weirdly distorted by the suit’s speakers. He’s not paying attention, fucking around with his gauntlet, and Clint has plenty of time to see the far-left dragon-Nazi taking careful aim and a deep breath, time to nock a net arrow and aim it at Stark because if he can’t make Stark listen to him he _will_ drag his dumb metal ass out of danger, and that’s when the car explodes, blowing Clint back and up against the roof of the ramp, and everything goes dark.

 

 

 

 

 

When Clint wakes up, he’s back in his cell. Tasha is in there with him, and she’s got a wet washcloth she’s laying down on his skin before gingerly picking it up and wringing it out. The washcloth is red.

“Tasha?” Clint says, and the spike of pain that rabbits through his head nearly puts him back out again. Even his _eyelids_ hurt. He cracks one of them—ouch—and sees Tasha’s soft smirk, the one she saves for especially tender moments.

“Stupid redneck,” she tells him. “You know you saved all of us?”

Clint closes his eye again.

“It’s true. You got us moving backwards. When that car blew it set off one of the Extremis breathers.”

This is new information. “Which one?” Clint mutters. Worst sunburn _ever_.

“Far left,” says Natasha. “He was getting ready to fry Stark. You saved him, too. That stupid net of yours.”

Clint weighs the possible pain of a shrug and decides against it. “So an extra heatspike sets ‘em off?” he whispers.

Natasha soaks the cloth again and drapes it delicately over his face, where it seeps cold water between his lips. The water tastes like old change. “Only the one who was getting ready to breathe fire,” she says. “Basically we figure his lung cavity was full of accelerant and the car explosion set it off before he could control it. The other firebreathers survived.”

This sets off an alarm in Clint and he tries to shake the washcloth off his face, which is a _mistake_. “Did they burn anyone?” he asks, when the pain recedes. “Are you OK? Is Banner—”

“Shh,” says Natasha authoritatively, and puts her fingers to his lips for good measure. He hears the footsteps of a guard pass by in the corridor outside the cell, and waits for the sound to recede and Natasha’s thigh to soften, the tension leaving her body. When she does relax, she wordlessly re-soaks the washcloth and goes to reapply it to his face; he stops her with a grimace. “Tasha. Please.”

She purses her lips, tastes her words carefully. “Hulk got hit pretty badly. Burns over seventy percent of his body.” She turns and soaks the rag again, dabbing at some spots on Clint’s neck that he can’t even feel. “Thor’s okay, but he blistered his hands pretty badly dragging Tony down that ramp while the suit was still hot. He’s doing some kind of Asgardian chanting to numb the pain.”

“Stark?” Clint whispers, because that doesn’t sound good.

“Stark is _pissed_ ,” says Tasha. “He and JARVIS have been fighting in his cell for over an hour now. Won’t stop stomping around. Asks Hulk if he’s okay every five minutes. I think he’s fine.”

“And you?” prompts Clint, cause Tasha’ll never tell him if he doesn’t make her.

“I’m fine,” she says, and he stops her with two fingers to the inside of her wrist. “Bull _shit_ ,” he tells her.

She sighs. “I caught some glass in the explosion,” she admits. “Haven’t had time to get it all out.”

Now _this_ Clint can help with. “Help me up,” he grumbles, and Natasha sighs but slings his arm over her neck and helps maneuver him to a sitting position, then tilts her head so he can sift through her hair, teasing out the tiny shards of glass wherever they sparkle.

“Good monkey husband,” she tells him, and he obligingly grunts for her, a little ook-ook noise that he doesn’t have to see her face to know she’s smiling at. The cell is quiet and warm, the silence punctuated only by the occasional plink of glass fragments on the floor and Stark’s ranting from down below.

“We’re really fucked, aren’t we?” whispers Tasha, and Clint for once can think of nothing to say.

 

 

 

 

“We’re fucked, sir!!” Maria hollers into the walkie-talkie that Fury’s had bike-messengered over from the local Best Buy and which, on frequency 44, can just barely hit Manhattan HQ. It’s not exactly a secure comm, but Xavier can only handle so much telepathic traffic at once and at the moment he’s busy with the Avengers, who have apparently staged an unsuccessful escape attempt while SHIELD has been trying—and failing—to battle their way down from above. Every time SHIELD gets more than half a storey below ground, they are met with an impenetrable wall of fire from Extremis-modified HYDRA personnel—thirteen SHIELD agents have already been burnt, three badly, and shooting doesn’t seem to help, because they keep being met with wave after wave of apparently inexhaustible HYDRA guards. There have been three attempts, and three failures, and Maria is completely exhausted. “What are your orders, sir?”

There’s a pause from Fury’s end. “Stand down, Agent Hill,” he says finally. “Pull back and set up a perimeter. We’ll reevaluate our position when they attempt to leave.”

That sounds an awful lot like _admitting defeat_ to Maria, but she’s too drained to argue the point. She gives the order, then sets the comm down on the bumper of a nearby ambulance, blearily noting Darnell a few ambulances over. He meets her eyes, raises one hand in weary greeting. Mouths “You OK?”

Maria doesn’t feel okay, but she nods anyway. Darnell comes over. She notices he’s limping.

“What’d you do to yourself?” she asks.

“Nothin’ too heroic,” he says. “Stepped wrong coming out the Jeep, twisted my ankle.”

“Ouch. Bad timing,” says Maria.

“No such thing as good timing, a day like this,” says Darnell, and they both take a seat on the ambulance bumper, watching SHIELD personnel set up traffic barriers, the sun setting orange over the smokestacks of east New Jersey. It’s weirdly beautiful, even with the knowledge of what’s lurking underneath the stadium.

“You know, when I was a kid, my mom’d take me and my sisters here every winter for Disney on Ice,” Darnell says. “I must’ve seen The Little Mermaid here ten times.”

“How many sisters?” Maria asks.

“Four, and nineteen girl cousins,” says Darnell. “You got any brothers and sisters?”

“Five brothers,” says Maria. “I’m the only girl.”

“Bet you can wrestle,” Darnell says, a small smile tugging at the edge of his words, and Maria chuckles, looking off into the soft twilight. “Bet you can play Barbies.”

“Oh, I am the _king_ of Barbies,” says Darnell, “I can crimp the hair and everything.”

They sit, breathing in the warm evening air, their shoulders almost touching. They don’t say much, but the silence is warm.

 

 

 

The words, “We should maybe try to grab some sleep,” have literally _just left Clint’s mouth_ when the distinctive “chunk” sound of heavy-duty lighting being turned on signals the end of break time. HYDRA personnel come pouring into the coliseum—however, these aren’t guards or armed commandos but black t-shirted teenagers, laughing and chatting with each other in German as they haul in a metric fuckton of A/V equipment and start setting up for what looks like the mother of all conference calls. Five large television screens are lowered from the ceiling. Microphones are hauled out, cables untangled, folding chairs and tables carried in and set up in five groups around the perimeter of the fifth floor. Clint narrows his eyes at the oldest teenagers, the ones who are giving the orders and testing the mics. Most have tattoos: Clint can see the distinctive double bolts of the SS. Hitler smileys (those he’s never seen outside of Idaho before). The Wolfsangel. 14s. 88s. None of the older HYDRA members have ink, Clint’s noticed—interesting, in that it points to some outside organization’s influence, probably Aryan Brotherhood, among the younger generation. Barney has some of those tattoos too.

“Charming,” says Natasha drily, joining him at the gate of the cell. “Wonder if that one has trouble getting dates,” and she points to the kid on the sound board, the one who has tattooed his shaven skull with a massive broken sun cross that reaches almost to his ears, like a particularly ugly beanie.

Clint chuckles. “Look at the pants on that one,” he says, pointing to a scrawny kid who’s chosen to accentuate his asslessness with ill-fitting black jeans, a bright red Algiz rune on each pocket.

“Today in Hot Topic, all girl’s jeans, twenty percent off,” Natasha says back in an undertone. They dissolve into giggles against each other—the assless kid, sensing attention, starts to look up at Black Widow and is dissuaded from doing so, with extreme prejudice, by his peers. Natasha snorts and points out a horrible haircut, and all that’s missing is some Panda Express and a couple of big mall sodas—Clint forgets where he is, what’s about to happen, his impending Barney-related meltdown, everything except making the assassin next to him giggle. Good old Natasha. She always has known how to act.

 

 

Clint's relief, of course, is short-lived: the teenagers finish setting up and disappear, and out come HYDRA’s guests, taking their places around the fifth floor tables: the mutants in sharp suits spend some time adjusting their nameplates and pocket squares, and one of them actually takes out a comb and does a little neatening of the fur around his sharp, wolf-like ears.

_The Brotherhood of Mutants,_ Xavier offers in Clint’s head. _A radical separatist organization responsible for several violent attacks against human targets._

Clint tries very, very hard not to think _Founded by your ex-boyfriend._ (The briefing packets at the upper reaches of SHIELD are really, really good.)

Xavier tactfully ignores him, focusing on the next group to take their seats—the woman in the creepy gold mask and her bodyguards. _Madame Masque and the Nefaria family_ , he informs Clint. _Holders of a_ _controlling interest in organized crime along the Eastern Seaboard._

Clint wonders if it’s hard to breathe in that thing.

_I am told it is an attempt to evade facial recognition software,_ thinks Xavier amusedly, _although I cannot imagine it drawing any more attention._

Clint shifts around, tries to fight a grin. If he’d told himself a year ago that trading catty fashion comments with his ex-girlfriend and an old queen like Xavier _while sitting in prison_ would be the highlight of his day, he would have kicked his own ass on principle. Whatever. Clint is all _about_ personal growth. Next group is the five besuited Asian dudes who were the first to arrive.

_The Hand,_ Xavier thinks at Clint. _An ultra-nationalistic branch of Japanese organized crime who derive their martial arts training from an ancient warrior death cult focusing on the resurrection of murdered friends._

_Of course they are,_ thinks Clint.

Next comes the mask-wearing man in his hooded cape, surrounded by large bodyguards who all walk like they learned how to do it by correspondence course. _Victor Von Doom,_ thinks Xavier, _or Doctor Doom, the warlord and self-appointed dictator of Latveria. His undergraduate degree, from Empire State University, is as of yet incomplete._ Xavier sounds like he sincerely doubts the existence of any such university. Clint grins. He can’t help it, he really **likes** this guy.

Finally, out comes the group of rough-looking thugs, who seat themselves with one empty chair in the center of their table. As Clint watches, a glowing swirl of mist appears in the empty chair, gradually thickening and resolving itself into a beautiful woman in green.

_Amora the Enchantress,_ Xavier advises. _A very powerful sorceress with ties to Victor Von Doom, as well as…_

Clint finishes the thought for him. _Loki._

_You are unfortunately correct,_ thinks Xavier. _I believe she is acting on his behalf today._

Clint grimaces a little. _Well, I suppose if Loki were capable of fighting his own fights, he wouldn’t have sent her in his place,_ he thinks.

_You are once again correct, Agent Barton,_ thinks Xavier, _but not about Amora._

Clint blinks.

_Agent Barton, if Loki were capable of fighting his own fights, as you put it, he wouldn’t have needed **you**. _

Clint has the sudden urge to cry, or scream, or punch back this praise he doesn’t want and can’t trust. Instead, he thinks, _Whatever. I just have rotten luck_.

Xavier’s voice, when it comes back, has a chuckle hiding in it. _Luck, Agent Barton, is only part of the picture._

 

 

 

Bruce cracks an eye open, feeling the bone-deep, hungover weariness that always follows an incident. He’s sore all over, and his clothes sting like mad everywhere they cling to him. He’s back in his cell, and there’s chatter everywhere, like the clamor of a theatre audience right before the show begins. He climbs to his feet and staggers to the door of his cell; Stark is at the door of his own cell in seconds, ranging up and down the bars like an anxious dog: “Bruce. Bruce. You okay, buddy?”

“I’ve felt better,” Bruce rasps. “What happened?”

“We got our asses handed to us,” Stark informs him. “You got burnt pretty bad. We’re back in prison. Oh and they were using shitty biotechnology. _AIM tech_ , Doc. I may well commit ritual suicide.”

“Well, don’t do that quite yet,” Bruce says, wincing as he pulls the fabric of his torn shirt away from a wet, open burn. “I may need you to carry me out of here.”

Stark is watching him, his eyes unreadable and dark. “You sure you didn’t wanna stay green, Doc?” he asks quietly. “Mighta helped with the pain.”

Bruce chuckles darkly. “Believe me, if I could control when the other guy goes away…” he trails off as he notices the five huge screens hanging from the roof of the coliseum and the crowd arranged around the walkway on the fifth floor. “Did I miss something?”

As if in response to his question, a HYDRA member, older, male, eerily familiar-looking, steps up to a standing mic on the fifth floor and taps the mic gently, sending a pealing wave of feedback through the coliseum.

“Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests of HYDRA,” the older gentleman says, once the feedback has died down. “Welcome to the sixth annual new talent auction, where we showcase some of the most exciting new products and services on the market. Today we offer you some of the most promising new forms of technology available,” and here he gestures towards Stark, whose entire face has darkened, “as well as some special treats for those of you with long and respected histories.” Bruce glances upwards to the sixth floor, where Clint and Natasha are certainly listening.

“But of course,” the older man continues, “None of this would be possible without HYDRA. Not to, erm, as you say, toot our own horn? But we should be very remiss without noting the fine work of our improvisational team, who rehearsed tirelessly for this day, please everyone, give them a hand,” and a polite smattering of applause greets a crowd of men, women, and children still dressed in the street clothes they’d worn to march down Manhattan streets earlier in the day. The group takes a flourishy, theater-style bow and exits; Bruce _hears_ the metal around Stark’s fingers crunching on the bars of his cell door.

“Rolf, the video feed, please,” says the older man, and four of the five video screens flare into life, displaying a high-quality security feed of the Avengers, battling flamethrowing HYDRA goons in the parking garage/ramp up to the surface, and Bruce feels his stomach drop sickeningly as he sees himse—the other guy standing in the middle of the ramp, getting peppered from all sides by small arms fire, roaring with anger. He looks over at Stark, who’s now ashen—the penny has dropped. _They let us out,_ thinks Bruce, _just to get video of what we could do. Just to watch us work._ The video changes, showing Clint in his cell, busily constructing a shiv; Natasha, snapping a guard’s neck without breaking a sweat; Thor using his hammer like a boomerang; Stark and Cap using lasers and shield in harmony; Bruce himself, caught in the moment of transformation. The screens pause here, and Bruce tears his gaze away before he loses his cool completely. Now the guests are applauding in earnest; one of them, a woman in a fancy evening dress, is actually _bouncing in her seat_.

The older man steps to the mic, holds up a hand for silence. “Of course, we would be most remiss if we did not acknowledge the seven brave youth of HYDRA who sacrificed their lives to bring us these items today.” The screens switch to images of the four teenaged guards; a firebreather from the battle in the parking garage; the false copter’s pilots. As sentimental music swells in the background, the images are juxtaposed with glamour shots of the youths in question, smiling in front of softly lit backgrounds decorated with HYDRA flags. They’re martyrdom portraits, Bruce realizes. Tony, bent over double in his cell two doors down, is retching quietly and neatly into a corner. Bruce wonders if this is how HYDRA keeps its members in line: _behave, or your young Ulf or Sigfried or Wolf may find himself bound for glory on a suicide mission._ He tries to remember if he killed the firebreather on the ramp today. He can’t remember a thing. He hopes, whoever it was, that it wasn’t Tony. The portraits fade and are replaced by the HYDRA logo; the wave of applause now is more subdued and solemn, though Bruce can see one of the mutants on the fifth floor texting. He looks away, shuts his eyes tight, tries to breathe.

“Without further ado,” continues the older man, his Bavarian accent lilting and pleasant, “Let us also welcome our remote guest, who has requested the privilege of bidding against all of you in today’s auction. The competition will be most stimulating, Director Fury,” and the final television screen flares into life.

“Director Fury is unable to be here today,” says a calm voice, one that Bruce would recognize anywhere, and he looks up in shock at the face of Agent Coulson, pale but composed and looking into the videoconferencing camera like he’s ready to kill someone—ready to kill a lot of people, really. “I’ve been authorized to bid for SHIELD on his behalf.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clint’s observation of Victor Von Doom’s personal bodyguards is not entirely mine; instead, it originates in Dylan Thomas’s characterization of the typical poet as having “a voice like a literate airedale’s that has learned its vowels by correspondence course”. (Dylan Thomas, “How To Be A Poet: Or, The Ascent of Parnassus Made Easy,” Quite Early One Morning, 1954.)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to my peerless beta JentheSweetie, whose patience with my propensity for fragments, run-ons, and painful adverbial choices is matched only by her keen and unerring instincts for their repair. She is the kind of editor every author dreams of, and if she'd been working for George Lucas in 1999, JarJar Binks would never have happened. The world's tragic loss is my gain. Thanks, sweetie.

“And we appreciate the courtesy,” says the older gentleman. “Is this representative acceptable to you all?” He addresses this question to the other bidders, who shift around and look a bit uncomfortable. The woman wearing a gold mask leans forward and speaks into her microphone.

“I think I speak for us all,” she says, and pauses, giving the other bad guys a chance to object, “When I express a concern over the potential security threat involved in allowing SHIELD to witness our gathering.”

“Ahh, Fraulein, please do not let it enter your head,” says the auctioneer with a smug grin that Clint wants to punch right off of him. “Our video feed is strictly one-way, with no ability to track the source of the signal, while our audio has been subjected to the finest voice encryption technology on the market. Additionally, we are on, how do you say it, a timer?” One of the other HYDRA members whispers in his ear. “Ah yes, a ‘timed delay’. Should any of you wish to make a comment you would prefer SHIELD not to hear, simply to press the switch in front of your microphone, and you will be able to mute your side of the conversation for as long as you wish.”

 _Are you getting this horseshit,_ thinks Clint, and right on time Xavier comes back in his head: _Every word, Agent Barton. Additionally, Agent Coulson would like me to inform you that HYDRA drastically overestimates their own technological capabilities._

Clint sneaks a look at Coulson’s face on the gigantic monitor HYDRA’s put him up on. Coulson’s wearing his very blandest face, giving nothing away, and the fact he’s aiming his…. _Coulson-ness_ at Clint through Xavier, all while looking like he _couldn’t be more bored,_ just cracks Clint up.

“Shut _up_ ,” Tasha hisses at Clint. “God, pull it together.”

Clint turns his giggle into a coughing fit, which doubles him over and then turns into a case of undignified hiccups. Clint hopes that HYDRA’s only wrong about the voice-recognition bits and the tracking bits, not the one-way-video bits, because if Coulson sees this, Clint will never get laid again. Coulson’s face, on the screen, remains impassive.

“We were told the auction would involve a selective group of guests,” the woman in the gold mask insists. “An additional party to drive up the prices is most unwelc—”

“Ah, Fraulein Masque, and here _I_ must insist,” the auctioneer interrupts, his tone much less indulgent now. “HYDRA is not running a, shall we say, charity organization? We offer items and services for sale, and we allow all interested parties with the necessary funds to bid. We should not be very good businessmen if we were to limit ourselves only to those customers whose ideologies were, shall we say, compatible, hmm? And now let us begin. The first item on the block is indeed a fine piece of technology, one that I imagine many of you have been interested in getting your hands on for some time.”

Clint cranes to see Stark, who has dropped the faceplate and has both gauntlets up, ready to fire, at the gate of his cell.

“Captain Steven G. Rogers,” reads the auctioneer, and the gentle ripple of laughter as Stark drops his palms incredulously makes Clint feel nauseous. A HYDRA guard goes to the gate of Cap’s cell, where there are some words traded. Clint only catches a few: “son”, “touch,” and “regret”. Cap comes out and stands at the edge of the balcony, his stillness a promise of imminent violence. The auctioneer continues smoothly. “Created by Howard Stark himself, this monument to the potential of biotechnology is power harnessed—”

“I think you mean Doctor Erskine.” Steve has interrupted. “Howard Stark only assisted, no offense Tony—”

“None taken,” says Stark through the suit speakers.

“But Doctor Abraham Erskine was the creator of the original formula,” Steve says, looking straight at the auctioneer. “Or don’t you fellas like giving credit to a Jew?”

“The provenance of the formula is of no importance,” says the auctioneer. “It was stolen from German scientists anyhow. Your interruption, however, is rude. Georg?” he says to the HYDRA goon standing to the left of Steve, who nods smartly and belts Steve across the mouth. Steve staggers, then bends over, and Clint sees a stringy bolus of spit and blood hit the sandy floor three stories down. A clanging crash echoes through the coliseum as Stark hits the gate of his cell, all repulsors whining, and Clint shoots a thought to Xavier. _Tell Stark to calm down, Rogers just doesn’t want to put on another show of strength for these assholes._

 _Done,_ thinks Xavier back, and Clint watches as Tony backs down, his gloved fingers still tight against the cell bars. Clint thinks that if he were Georg, he’d be thinking up some meaningful last words. But Steve just straightens, his mouth still dripping blood, and returns to his at-ease stance, silent and terrifying.

“Enough of this,” says the auctioneer. “Gentlemen, if you please?” Like clockwork, a phalanx of HYDRA goons in black Kevlar march in, stationing themselves in front of each caged Avenger’s cell (Clint and Natasha get two guards) before executing a smart about-face to look into each cell. Then, they open their mouths. Clint’s about to say something smart about the wisdom of standing very still with an open mouth in front of a prison cell door, but then he notices the telltale glow of Extremis at his guard’s throat and the words evaporate. He takes a step back.

“Thank you, gentlemen, that should ensure a lack of interference from the merchandise. Feuerspucker, if any of the product makes a disturbance, burn them.”

Clint doesn’t really want to take his eyes off his firebreathing guard, but he does anyway to sneak a peek at the level in his cell’s water bucket. Not promising. Next to him, Tasha is raising her eyebrow; Clint hears Xavier’s voice in his head.

_Agent Barton, Agent Romanov would like me to inquire if you perchance brought any of your incendiary arrowheads along with you on this mission?_

Clint grimaces. He’d been hoping Natasha wouldn’t ask that. _They were in my other quiver,_ he thinks and then (as the information is relayed and Natasha’s eyes narrow dangerously) hastens to add: _I was focusing on bolos and nets when we left—non-lethal stuff, y’know? To capture the zombiefied civilian herd of lemming people?_ **_Please,_** he silently thinks to Xavier, _make that plan sound smarter than it turned out to be._

 _Luckily for you_ , Professor Xavier thinks back at him, _Agent Romanov is busy hoping you won’t notice that she left her Widow’s Bites in the other cell when she was brought in to care for you._

“Nooooo,” mouths Clint, looking pointedly at Natasha’s wrists and back up again. She looks irritated, turning her attention back to the guards at the gate and the auction beyond. The auctioneer is droning on and on about Steve’s super speed, super reflexes, super strength, super healing and super stamina and super sense of color and proportion in interior decorating, yadda yadda yadda, and Clint doesn’t have to see Tony Stark’s face to know just how hard he’s rolling his eyes. Some of the guests are bored too—the wolf-like mutant is nipping delicately at his manicure, and the small green fog that Amora the Enchantress has created on her desk doesn’t entirely conceal the fact that she’s checking Facebook on her phone. Sensing that his audience’s attention is slipping, the auctioneer finally wraps up his preamble and gestures to one of the goons on the first floor, a little “cranking-up” gesture that Clint does not like **one bit** , because what the goon does next is go over to the wall and press a button, and the next sound Clint hears is the slow, ticky turn-crank noises of a very large metal gate being slowly lifted, and if Clint knows one thing from movies, it’s that big heavy metal gates being cranked open inside massive Coliseum-like prisons are never a good thing.

 _Banthas aren’t real_ , he reminds himself, forgetting for a moment who’s listening.

_No, Agent Barton. Unfortunately, I can offer no insight into what is inside that corridor, as it is emitting no readable thought patterns which I can detect._

Clint blinks. That was **intel**. Xavier doesn’t see it, but Clint hasn’t been training six hours a day for eight years for nothing, and he can recognize the negative space around intel as clearly as he can recognize actual intel. _Tell that to Steve,_ he thinks, _and quickly_.

 _Very well,_ thinks Xavier back, sounding confused, and disappears from Clint’s mind.

Steve’s face clears, and he glances up at Clint ever so briefly, just a fleeting look of thanks before he makes a couple of small adjustments to his shield grip and hunches down, and that’s when the actual swarm of disc-shaped robot drones comes pouring out of the open gate and fills the air, swirling in a complicated flock pattern and firing _actual lasers_ at Steve out of their weird drone eyes, and Steve is ducking and swirling, a blur of shield and body, and the first drone he knocks out of the air goes ricocheting across the stadium and clears the whole mutant table, who jump back like _they’re_ the ones under fire.

“Not texting _now_ , are ya!?!?” Stark is yelling at the group of mutants, and Clint sends a frantic _shut the fuck up_ message through Xavier to Stark, but the flock of drones has everyone too distracted and Stark’s firebreather doesn’t blast Stark, though Clint is seriously considering letting the dumb motherfucker roast next time. Steve is putting on a show whether he wants to or not, knocking drones out of the air with the blunt face of his shield and shearing the closer ones in half with its edge; the lasers they’re blasting aren’t cosmetic, though, and every shot kicks up a small explosion of concrete dust, edging Steve closer and closer to the edge of the coliseum’s void. Clint sees Steve weighing the options as his heel edges over the concrete lip, and when Steve jumps and lands squarely on one of the drones, throwing it off-kilter and sending laser-blasts everywhere, the auction’s guests are the only ones who are surprised. Every other Avenger, hearing the _get down_ from Clint-through-Xavier, has hit the ground inside their cells and are lying face-down, hands clasped behind their heads, looking passive and avoiding stray laser blasts. Clint listens to the shouts and screams of panicked assholes in masks and smiles grimly into the dirt, hoping that at least a few of the guests are currently reconsidering the wisdom of attending these types of events in future.

Steve’s riding the drone like a bucking bronco, reaching into its guidance compartment and yanking fistfuls of wire out with his bare hands, sparks and components flying. Clint hears orders being yelled in German, feet running past. Natasha, on his left, is grabbing something in the dirt—she shifts her weight and passes it to him, and holy shit, it’s an arrowhead made out of one of the Extremis inhalers. Steve remembered the plan from back in the ambulance and tossed tech from Stark to Tasha while riding a crazed laser-shooting robot Frisbee through a room of panicked firebreathing science-Nazis. Clint can feel himself becoming more patriotic by the moment.

“ _Herunterfahren! Herunterfahren!!!”_ the auctioneer is yelling to one of the teenagers who helped with setup as the guests duck and cower behind their polyester tableskirts; Clint sneaks a peek upwards at the gigantic video monitors and notes with vicious satisfaction that Coulson is still wearing his “I am bored to tears” face, even though Clint knows _for a fact_ (and without Xavier’s help) that watching Cap get shot at causes Phil physical pain. The teen lunges for a milk crate full of remote controls and begins frantically sorting through them, hitting buttons and discarding remotes as they turn out not to be the right ones; some of the monitors hanging from the ceiling go blue or change channels, and suddenly the noise of a soccer match and an overdubbed Japanese movie are added to the cacophony. Steve’s still on his mission of destruction, jumping from one disabled drone to the next, ripping out wiring or simply smashing his shield down through each robotic brain; the drones, pack animals that they are, have clearly gotten the message that Steve is a major predator, and they’re starting to run from him, not the other way around. Cap hops lightly off one of the crippled drones onto the fourth floor and sends his shield out on a boomerang-like course that knocks another three out of commission on its way around the circumference of the coliseum. By the time the teen locates the correct remote and hits a button that makes the last of the drones drop like stones, only two still exist to be deactivated, and they’re busy hiding up in the dark drop ceiling, beyond the lights. Clint watches them fall into the dust below and thinks, _I guess Steve ended up giving them that show they wanted anyway._

 _Indeed,_ thinks Professor Xavier at him.

 _You think they’re gonna make us all fight drones?_ thinks Clint.

 _I am attempting to ascertain their plan now,_ thinks Professor Xavier. _Please stand by._

As Clint and Natasha slowly get back up from the floor, dusting themselves off, the guests of the auction do the same, rearranging their hair and clothing and talking amongst themselves in low, agitated tones.

“Herr Mueller,” the woman in the gold mask says, and _bingo_ , now Clint has a _name_ for the dapper asshole whom he is going to murder with extreme prejudice. “I would have brought more in the way of body armor had I known the auction would be so… interactive.” The other guests titter nervously, and the auctioneer chuckles along with them.

“Fraulein Masque, I think I speak for all of us at HYDRA when I say, none of that was according to plan. But hey!” and here, the slick motherfucker throws his hands up in the air, in a little ‘what can you do’ gesture. “This is what happens when you deal with superheroes, am I right!?” The guests relax the rest of the way, laughing as they take their seats. Clint’s gotta hand it to the guy, he’s a showman. Stark, looking mutinous in his cell, is probably taking mutinous notes. The auctioneer continues. “And furthermore, is that not what you are all here today to see? The extraordinary physical gifts and combat abilities bestowed by the very first supersoldier serum? We are not selling Oil Of Avon here today, ladies and gentlemen, we are selling a formula that jumpstarts the reflexes, the creative mind, the problem-solving abilities and neurological connections that make fast, adaptive battlefield reasoning possible. This… fine specimen offers you the key to unlocking unlimited physical and mental potential. It would be a poor demonstration of the serum indeed if Captain Rogers were unable to… surprise us.”

Steve, breathing hard, still manages to convey with the slightest ripple of jaw muscle that Clint is going to have some stiff competition in the “kill Herr Mueller” race they’re all going to have later.

“And on that note, shall we begin the bidding?” the auctioneer continues blithely. “Is everybody ready? Georgi, could you kindly turn off that football match? Thank you.”

The soccer match and Japanese movie disappear, replaced by slides of Steve’s physical stats. Coulson, up there on his monitor, adjusts his cuffs blandly and frowns down at a few index cards in his palm, and Xavier pops into Clint’s head: _Agent Barton, Agent Coulson would like me to inform you that, if he spends all of SHIELD’s ransom budget on retrieving Captain Rogers, you can rest assured that he will look back with great fondness upon the time you spent together._

Clint nearly chomps through his own tongue trying not to laugh. _Can you send Agent Coulson a picture?_ he thinks at Xavier.

_Indeed, Agent Barton, I can._

Clint focuses down hard on a mental image, and he can see the exact second that Xavier relays it through to Phil, because Phil’s cheek tightens as he chomps down on **his** tongue.

“Now, I must inform you that, as in most auctions, HYDRA holds a discretionary reserve price,” the auctioneer is saying. “If this price is not met, we will retain the item and no one will be out any money. Bids will proceed in an orderly and incremental fashion, with five thousand US dollars being the minimal increment for each subsequent bid. Bidding will start at ten thousand dollars, do I hear ten…” and the auction is off and running, with the Hand, Doctor Doom, and Phil rapidly running Steve’s value up past sixty, eighty, a hundred thousand dollars, and Amora, the Mutant Brotherhood, and Madam Masque sitting this one out. Clint supposes that if you’re a crazy enchantress lady or a mutant, you don’t really need a serum to gain your superpowers—he’s not sure why Madam Masque doesn’t want a piece of this action, but if wearing a brass mask through the airport is her idea of a secret identity, maybe biomedical technology isn’t really the Nefaria family’s thing.

Clint is pretty sure Phil was joking about blowing the budget, but when the bids pass five hundred thousand and Phil hasn’t even blinked yet, he sends a thought Xavier’s way. _Just out of curiosity, what **is** SHIELD’s ransom budget these days?_

Xavier replies smoothly, _Agent Coulson has specifically asked me not to reveal the figure, as he believes it will make you impossible to work with in the future_.

Clint chuckles, and as the numbers scoot up past seven hundred thousand, Natasha leans in to whisper in his ear: “Can you imagine how pissed Stark is gonna be if he goes for less than Rogers?” and that just cracks Clint up. The Extremis-breathing guard glowers at them, looking both unamused and constipated, and Clint pulls himself together just in time to catch the moment the bids hit one point one million, at which point the Hand drops out. It’s just as well; Clint wasn’t in any mood to tangle with a deadly squad of mystical ninjas to get Rogers back, and while he doesn’t believe for one hot minute that Doctor Doom will be any kind of fun, he’s relieved that katanas aren’t likely to be involved. Clint saw someone die by sword once, when he was young, and the experience left him…. twitchy, about blades in general. Natasha loves her knives, and he’s tried to explain to her why projectiles just _feel_ better, but she’s a wet worker and nothing about her mindset is the same. Oh well. Different strokes for different folks.

The bidding hits one point three, and Clint notes with confusion that Phil doesn’t seem to be getting ready to fold. Which is strange, because Clint knows something about the house Nick Fury built, and Nick Fury would never give up the chance to weaken an enemy organization by bankrupting them, even if it meant giving up one of their own. _Just out of curiosity,_ he thinks at Xavier, _has Fury established any kind of an upper limit here?_

Xavier comes back after a moment. _Agent Coulson says that SHIELD intends to **win** this particular sale, Agent Barton._

Clint caught that. Everyone thinks he doesn’t listen, but he listens. _This **particular** sale,_ he thinks.

_Yes, Agent Barton. This particular sale._

Clint does some fast thinking. _Thor,_ he thinks. _Fury’s not gonna bid on a god, thinks he can take care of himself._

_Correct, Agent Barton. And, regrettably—_

Clint cuts him off there. _It’s all right._ Joking aside, he always knew this was gonna happen. It’s Fury’s house, Fury’s rules. _‘s OK, Professor. I know already._

_Agent Barton, I—_

_Get out,_ Clint thinks. He can’t listen to another nice voice inside his head nicely explaining how he’s expendable. Not today. He needs his head for other stuff today.

_Agen—_

_Get the **fuck** out. Now._

And Xavier disappears, just like Clint’s asked him to. Nice. Clint turns and walks to the back of the cell, out of sight of the monitors and Phil’s face. He doesn’t watch the rest of the auction, doesn’t see Phil’s joy when he wins, doesn’t see the slack relief going through Rogers’ frame, doesn’t want to. He’s got enough on his plate right now.

 

 

 

When Clint gets off the line with Xavier, Natasha can see something’s gone wrong; his whole face shuts down, goes from communicative and faintly amused to homicidally pissed in less than ten seconds. And then, just as the bidding for Steve reaches its astronomical climax, he turns on his heel and marches to the back wall of the cell, his body language radiating “leave me alone” the way only teenaged boys and Clint Barton can radiate it.

 _Agent Romanov,_ Professor Xavier interjects into Natasha’s mind, but she brushes him away.

_Not now, Professor._

_Agent, please li—_

_I **said** not now,_ Natasha thinks, and her mental voice must carry her full meaning, because the Professor promptly backs out of her mind, leaving her alone in the cell with Clint.

“Clint. What’s wrong.”

He’s focused on his bow, fiddling with the sight that Natasha knows is perfectly calibrated, running his fingers up and down the string she knows is perfectly tensed.

“SHIELD’snotgonnabidonThornme,” he says in an undertone, and Natasha has to process for a second before she really _hears_ him.

“Clint. No. No, that can’t be.”

“It is, alright? And now I gotta figure out how’m gonna get outta this and where’m gonna go afterwards if I don’t get shot—”

“What do you mean where you’re gonna go _afterwards_ ,” Natasha says. “You’re coming back to me is what you’re doing.” She’s having to bob and weave all over to stay in his face; he won’t look her in the eye. “Clint. Promise me you’re gonna come back.”

“To SHIELD?” he says. “One big happy family, huh.”

“To me,” she says firmly. “SHIELD can go fuck itself if it doesn’t want you.”

That gets a tiny smile, so Natasha continues. “We’ll both leave if that’s what you want. It’ll be just you and me and Phil—” It’s the wrong thing to say, she knows that the second it’s out of her mouth. Clint’s whole face shuts down; he turns and stalks away, jamming himself up against the bars and refusing to look at her. She doesn’t know what to say; she wants to be let into his head, wants to know what’s going on in there, but Clint is a distance worker and nothing about the mental framework is the same. So she does the only thing she can do: puts a hand on his shoulder and settles in for the wait.

 

 

 

 

_Doctor Banner._

Bruce just about jumps straight out of his skin. Scratch that, _the other guy_ just about jumps straight out of Bruce’s skin. _Jesus Christ,_ he thinks. _You almost scared the life out of me, Professor._

_I do apologize, Doctor. However, we haven’t much time. I’m afraid I may have made a terrible error._

_How’s that_ , Bruce thinks. He’s always wondered what a terrible error looks like when you’re a genius measuring 10 on Ox-Carlyle.

_I may have accidentally lead Agent Barton to erroneously conclude that SHIELD intends to give him up in the oncoming sale. I am now concerned that he may not fight as vigorously as he must to survive the coming ordeal._

_Ah,_ thinks Bruce. _I take it you don’t know Agent Barton that well._

There’s a brief pause. Bruce guesses that not many people tell an Omega-class telepath that they’re reading people wrong. After deciding that Xavier isn’t going to fill the silence, Bruce continues. _You don’t need to worry about Agent Barton’s survival instinct, Professor. Worry instead about what’s going to happen when Agent Romanov gets wind of your mistake. She doesn’t take kindly to people who disturb her partner’s equilibrium._

 _Indeed,_ thinks Xavier. _I intend to offer a full explanation and apology as soon as Agent Romanov begins taking my calls, as it were. However, I have an even more pressing matter I must discuss with you._

 _What could possibly be more pressing than watching Stark pop a neck vein over Captain Rogers,_ thinks Bruce, as several HYDRA guards wrestle an unwilling Steve into a Jeep to go to the surface and SHIELD.

_You, Doctor Banner. You’re up next._

 

 

 

When Steve finally gets delivered to the parking lot (by an unarmed HYDRA crew who are so worried about presenting stationary targets to SHIELD that they actually pitch him out the back of the moving Jeep before rabbiting back down the access drive) he’s only a little surprised to see Nick Fury glaring down at him, trenchcoat rippling in the rotor backwash from the helicopter that’s winding down a few dozen yards away. Maria Hill is standing right behind Fury, and it’s to her that Steve addresses his first greeting:

“We gotta go back down there.”

“No can do, soldier,” says Nick Fury, and that’s all it takes for Steve’s temper to finally boil over, because he’s been tricked and shot at and kidnapped and punched and attacked by flying robots and sold at auction and hogtied and dumped out of a moving vehicle today, and the only part of that that really pisses him off is that _Nick Fury paid to separate him from his team_.

“You may have paid my ransom but you don’t own me,” Steve says, getting right up in Fury’s space. “And you don’t get to tell me not to go back for my team.”

Fury’s face clears. “You’re right, I don’t. But if you want SHIELD people to help, why don’t you take a look at ‘em first.”

Steve looks around at the line of ambulances, cop cars, fire engines and SHIELD personnel carriers that close off every exit from the Meadowlands. SHIELD agents are leaning on every vehicle, some burned and bleeding, all looking like they’re about to fall over, but when they see him watching, they all straighten up and try to look a little less injured and exhausted. It’s a thing people do when confronted by Captain America, and over the years he’s learned to mentally subtract it in order to get a realistic troop assessment. Assessment: shellacked. Maria Hill is looking at him, too, her gaze clear and steady, and in her cool blue eyes Steve reads a withering rebuke. He backs down.

“You’re right. I’m sorry, I should have asked how everyone was doing up here.”

“We’ve tried to rescue your team three times,” Maria informs him coolly. “Three of our personnel are in a burn unit right now.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve says to Maria, and means it. “Director Fury, I know you’ve just spent a fortune to keep Dr. Erskine’s formula from falling into the wrong hands, and I understand that it’s not about me.”

“Damn straight,” says Fury, and puts a hand on his shoulder. “Doesn’t mean we’re not glad to have you back.”

“Of course. Doesn’t mean I’m happy about being first man out.’

Fury chuckles. “Now, that I understand. Let’s go talk ‘bout what you saw down there.”

And Steve allows himself to be led to a cop car, where a big blank piece of paper is already spread out across the hood. Maria hands him a pencil, and with a couple dozen SHIELD agents looking on, Steve does what he’s always been pretty good at doing. He draws from memory.

 

 

 

 

As Bruce waits the seemingly interminable time it takes for HYDRA to lower nine massive mall-style grates from the ceiling, surrounding him in a nonagonal cage and (presumably) shielding the customers and guards on the many levels of the Coliseum from the other guy, he reflects on the way people always assume they know what pushes his buttons. For instance, they’ve shoved him into the ring naked, assuming that this will humiliate him. It doesn’t. Bruce isn’t bothered by nudity. On the other hand, he left a perfectly prepared travel mug of steaming hot tea on the counter in Avengers Tower this morning, walked right past it on his way to the Quinjet when the alert sounded, and that fact is irking the _hell_ out of him. He takes his glasses off and walks over to the edge of the dusty central circle, leans down to toss them under the descending grate, walks back to the center of the circle. No point in ruining a perfectly good pair of glasses. Behind him, Tony is flitting around in his cell, bumping into things, making his guard’s life difficult and tempting a thousand-degree bolt of fire. Bruce looks up at what’s left of his team. Thor’s eyes are dark, and his muscles are rippling dangerously as he adjusts and readjusts his grip on Mjolnir. Clint, higher up, is looking down at Bruce with a blank, distant look in his eyes, the thousand-yard stare of the condemned. Natasha, next to him, looks frightened, and it’s that last fact that actually sends Bruce over the edge into genuine fear, and then the cage finally locks into place around him, and the sands shift as the gate in the floor opens up, and Bruce should have known when he was locked in a Coliseum that it was only a matter of time before someone brought the lions.

 

 

 

From a distance, Clint can see better. He’s always said so, but everyone thinks it’s some kinda philosophical bullshit when he says it, as if Clint were the type of guy who A) would have a life philosophy and B) would spread it around to everyone whether they asked or not. No and no. Clint actually means _just that_ when he says he sees better from a distance. As in, he’s fucking farsighted. People don’t know that, just like people don’t know he’s half-deaf, because people usually don’t hire him to read tiny print, just like people don’t hire him to listen to stuff. People hire him to shoot things that are far away, a job he’s perfectly suited for. And Clint’s pretty well-placed right now to see that the three lions currently approaching Bruce, who for the moment is still Bruce, are A) hungry, B) hunting, and C) glowing around the ribcage every time they breathe. Yay, Extremis has veterinary applications! Clint sends a thought to Xavier:

_Tell Bruce he better Hulk the fuck out right the fuck now if he doesn’t wanna be lunch._

Xavier doesn’t respond, which in fairness Clint kicked him the fuck out, but Clint also can’t tell if he passes the message on, because Bruce doesn’t react, just stands there with his palms facing forward, like you would to let a really large dog sniff you. Natasha, to Clint’s right, gulps audibly, and Clint figures Xavier’s probably talking to her. He looks over at her. She doesn’t meet his eyes.

“Fucking _what_ , Natasha,” he says, and she gives him a murderous glare.

 _Fine,_ he thinks. _Fucking talk to me._

_Thank you, Agent Barton. I apologize if—_

_Information,_ thinks Clint, pinching the bridge of his nose. _Just—fucking information, please?_

_Doctor Banner is attempting to avoid the necessity of killing animals he views as innocents._

_That’s crazy,_ thinks Clint. _Lions aren’t even endangered. Did you tell him they’re not endangered?_

_Doctor Banner is aware. He views these particular lions as victims of military weapons experimentation, a subject about which he has strong feelings._

_O-KAY,_ Clint thinks in the strongest possible voice he can muster at the moment. _Let’s do a little education. That lion in the center looking at him? She’s not fucking deciding what to do, she’s **decided** , and she’s looking at him to get the rest of the group on-target. Lions don’t toy with their food and they don’t wait for it. Dr. Banner, I hope the hell you’re getting this, because the next thing that’s going to happen is she is going to launch herself at your fucking face, and if you’re lucky she’ll suffocate you before the others eviscerate you. Or maybe use their Extremis to barbeque you, I don’t know how much control big cats have when THEY’RE FUCKING DRAGONS, _Clint finishes up. He really doesn’t know how to help these PETA types, he swears to God.

There’s a long and significant pause, and then Xavier returns to Clint’s head. He sounds shaken. _Dr. Banner is aware of the probability, but is still attempting to avoid transforming. I believe he is making this decision based on information I mistakenly shared with him._

 _What information,_ Clint thinks.

_SHIELD doesn’t plan to let **you** fend for yourself, Agent Barton, as I was trying to tell you. They are planning on letting **Dr. Banner** go. _

Clint shakes his head. There’s no way he heard that right. _Come again, Professor?_ he thinks.

_You heard me perfectly, Agent Barton. SHIELD is not planning on bidding for Doctor Banner, just as they are not planning on bidding for Thor. They are planning on bidding for you, Agent Romanov, and Mister Stark._

_That’s nuts,_ Clint thinks. _I’m a fucking sniper, there are **hundreds** of me on payroll. Doctor Banner is a genius, **and** he can level a building with his bare hands, I’ve seen him do it._

 _Your poor estimation of your own worth aside,_ Xavier thinks, _Doctor Banner is in need of assistance._

Clint can see that. The alpha lioness’s tail has begun to switch back and forth. When it stops, she will attack. _How can I help him,_ he thinks.

 _Doctor Banner wishes to avoid killing these animals at all costs,_ Xavier thinks. _He is willing to sacrifice his own life for this, but does not believe the Hulk will allow him to remain passive while being eaten. Is there any way he can defuse the situation so the lions will not attack and cause a transformation?_

Clint does a quick situation analysis. Banner needs to get higher than the lions, fast. Climbing the grate behind him is out, because it will look like flight, and flight will trigger an attack. There’s no chair in the arena. No whip, nothing he can use to keep them at bay. There’s just Bruce, and Bruce isn’t big or mean or loud enough to scare a lion, much less three of them.

 _He has to transform,_ Clint thinks.

_But Doctor Banner has already indicated he is unwi—_

_He has to do it now, before they attack,_ Clint thinks. _If he does it now, there’s a chance the Hulk won’t see them as threats. If they’re already attacking him, the Hulk is going to kill them all to protect Bruce, or himself, or whatever. Put it to Bruce some way he’ll understand,_ he begs Xavier mentally. _Lions won’t attack if the numbers aren’t right. They won’t try the Hulk, he’s too big. Tell him to transform right now._

There is a prolonged, agonizing silence, in which the lioness’s tail pauses, then stills and goes very stiff. Bruce looks up at Clint, one single anguished look, and then it’s happening, he’s changing, transforming, skin rippling green and bulging, just as the alpha lioness launches herself at his throat.

 

__

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is here because of my amazing beta, JenTheSweetie. She cheered me through it and kept me going when I was ready to bang my head against the wall, and provided the swiftest, most incisive and insightful readthrough I've ever had. She's the reason this story is now over 100K words. Goddamnit. 
> 
> ...thanks, Sweetie. :)

Clint’s never seen a lion attack quite like this before; never seen a lion snap her jaws shut in mid-air and twist her body frantically around in a desperate attempt to abort mission halfway through. The Hulk, growing by the second, is the size of a rhino, then a young elephant, then a bigger elephant, and as he grows the lioness lands and scrambles backwards, claws digging for purchase in the sand as she scoots, looking for the gate in the floor that’s already closed. The Hulk roars as he reaches full height, the sound echoing up to the rafters and vibrating the grates that have dropped from the ceiling to encircle him. All three lions are backing off now, ears pinned back and tails tucked in. The alpha lioness is nearly pissing herself—Clint supposes that having your lunch turn into the Hulk would do that to you. The Hulk, now full-size, bellows two or three more times for good measure, then punches the grating next to him, sending a massive ripple all the way up to the ceiling. The terrified lions are now trying to burrow underneath the grating on the opposite side of the circle, where the guards are arguing in German about how best to tase wildlife through a metal grate. Clint glances at Natasha, who is engaged in a losing battle with a smirk. He feels bad about shutting her out, earlier. She was only trying to make him feel better. So, Clint drops a hand, holds it very slightly apart from his body, a silent invitation. Getting a Black Widow to take your hand is about on par, difficulty-wise, with getting a timber wolf to eat out of it. The secret is not to look.

 

 

“So this is where we think they’re gonna come out?” Darnell says, looking skeptical. Maria doesn’t blame him. The Geno’s Subs across Berry’s Creek Road from the Meadowlands looks more like a derelict gas station than a potential gateway to an underground fortress. But Steve said that the only tunnel he saw leading off the Coliseum, besides the car ramp, was the hundred-yard-long tunnel heading back towards HYDRA’s kitchens and living areas. And if Captain Sense of Direction is right that the tunnel aims west, that means the only reasonable spot for an alternate, sneaky exit point is somewhere around this crumbling, faded sandwich joint. Unfortunately, if such a tunnel or elevator does exist, none of the HYDRA folks are thinking about it very much today— _How much time do **you** spend thinking about your house’s basement door on an average day, Agent Hill?_ Xavier had said, sounding a bit frayed from having to play Psychic Friends Network all day—and so Maria and Darnell have been tasked with finding the possible exit to the massive underground fortress staffed by hundreds of evil science-Nazis who can breathe fire. As she pulls the SHIELD Jeep into the parking lot of the Geno’s, Maria thinks this may not have been such a great idea.

“Darnell?” she asks.

“Yeah?”

“Are you carrying a weapon?”

“Only my minty fresh breath, thanks for asking.”

“Okay,” says Maria, peering out the windshield at the grimy façade of Geno’s, noting the many dead insects stuck to the windows, the total lack of customers. The OPEN sign flickers red. “Follow my lead.”

 

 

 

Sitting next to Cerebro, trying to breathe deeply and regain his composure, Phil stares down at the envelope on which Xavier has scrawled down Nick’s instructions for the auction. Some of Nick’s choices are easy to understand. Thor can take care of himself. Dr. Banner, ditto. Steve could have fallen under the same heading, but Dr. Erskine’s serum is too valuable to lose. Stark Industries will pay Tony’s ransom, so it’s no skim off Fury’s budget to bid for him. All fairly obvious, but then there’s Clint and Natasha. There’s no reason Phil can think of that would motivate Nick to tear great chunks out of SHIELD’s budget just to ransom two agents, neither of them privy to the type of intel (like nuclear launch codes) that would make their loss catastrophic. And yet… Phil has an envelope in his hand with two very, very, very large numbers on it for precisely that purpose. It suddenly occurs to Phil that his boss appears to be making a gesture. And while that would be heartwarming under most circumstances, Phil has known Nick Fury for fifteen years. Nick Fury **does not make gestures.**

Phil reaches over and gently taps Xavier on the elbow. Xavier opens his eyes, and Phil apologetically mouths, Fury? Xavier nods slightly—the helmet clearly weighing badly on his neck—and makes a little “go ahead” gesture to Phil when the telepathic channel is clear.

 _Sir,_ Phil thinks. _Is there something you want to tell me about why we’re allotting so much money to get Strike Team Delta back?_

He receives back nothing but silence.

 

 

 

 

Bruce’s auction isn’t going well. With the lion fight a bust, HYDRA is reduced to playing back CNN clips of the Battle For New York and grainy security camera footage from the escape attempt in the parking garage; for his part, without a clear enemy, the Hulk just sort of ranges around the borders of his cage, periodically thumping his chest and snorting. The lions have all had to be sedated, and are sleeping in a pile at the edge of the cage; Hulk carefully avoids stepping on them every time he makes the circuit, and at one point he reaches out and strokes the alpha lioness’s jowl with a single finger, which Clint finds kind of adorable but which is clearly not the terrifying display of brute force that HYDRA had in mind. The auctioneer is ad-libbing a long and rambling monologue about gamma radiation; none of the guests are listening. Amora has gone back to Facebook, one of the mutants has actually stepped away to take a call, and Victor Von Doom is trying to drink champagne through the vent in his mask. (It’s not going well.) Trailing off to confer with his science-Nazi buddies, the auctioneer apparently decides to just get the auction underway; the bids start sluggishly between the Hand and Doctor Doom, and Clint wonders if Hulk is even going to meet his reserve price, but then Amora finishes watering her crops on Farmville or whatever and joins the action, which, what in the hell does a sorceress want with a Hulk? Then Clint remembers who Amora’s likely bidding on behalf of, and he has to squinch his eyes shut for a little while and practice his deep breathing. Natasha, still holding his hand, squeezes it comfortingly.

“Bruce’ll be fine,” she whispers to him. Weirdly, it makes him feel better, even though Clint has to wonder what is up with Natasha’s definition of “fine” that it includes this situation. Intellectually, Clint knows that not bidding on Bruce and Thor is Fury’s call, not Phil’s; intellectually, he even knows that it’s the sensible call to make, given SHIELD’s not unlimited resources and Bruce and Thor’s relative toughness compared to the non-super meat-people on the team. Intellectually, Clint knows plenty. But he can’t look at Coulson’s face on the screen right now. This has never been a problem for Clint before.

 

 

 

“Hello?” says Maria, stepping carefully across the threshold of the Geno’s, Darnell right behind her. The tinkling bell announces their presence, but aside from a few buzzing flies there’s no one visible in the front of the sandwich shop. Everything appears lightly furred with grease and dust; Maria notices the clock on the wall has a dead battery. Just as she is about to draw her weapon and go around—or maybe over—the counter, a teenager appears from the back. He is pale, blond, about seventeen years old, wearing a black apron, and is clearly unprepared for visitors.

“Uh, hello?”

Maria plasters a blithe smile on her face. “Hi there, yeah, we’re needing to order about sixty sandwiches?”

The teenager looks panicked; they’re probably the first real customers he’s ever had.

“You take credit?” she prompts him.

“Uh, no,” the teenager says, finally showing some signs of brain activity. “Cash only.” He points to a scrap of paper Scotch-taped to the counter that does, indeed, specify Cash Only.

“Okay, that’s no problem,” Maria says, switching compartments in her wallet and yanking out a wad of twenties. They’re marked, but the teenager doesn’t even notice, he’s so busy punching buttons on the register. “We’ll take ten each turkey, ham, veggie, tuna, roast beef and BLT.” Maria can see the sweat gathering at the teenager’s temples and collarbone, has noticed the kid’s hands shaking; if he makes one single move towards the underside of the counter edge, where a panic button might be concealed, she’ll have to shoot him. But something about Darnell’s stillness behind her tells her, not yet.

“You got anyone here to assist today?” she asks, aiming for cheery banter and missing, she can tell by the kid’s reaction, by several miles. “Cause, uh, this is an awful lot of sandwiches,” she clarifies lamely. “Might take a while.”

The kid gulps and shakes his head no, still intent on the register buttons. He keeps making errors, has had to void the transaction and shove the cash drawer back in twice. If they can’t get him to calm down, he’s going to panic and do something stupid, and Maria would prefer not to have to shoot a frightened teenager today, even if he is an evil science-Nazi. Behind her, Darnell clears his throat. “Uh, dude, can we help?”

“Not unless you know how to work one of these ancient ones from like the eighties,” the kid says, and then Darnell’s moving smoothly around Maria, placing his hands on her hips to physically shift her to one side as he comes around the counter. She’s so taken aback she barely even hears what he says, just catches the tail end:

“—four years in Subway, all through high school, using one just like this one.” Now he’s standing in front of the register, punching buttons smoothly, clearing up the kid’s mess and producing a receipt within minutes, which he shows the kid.

“Here. Total it up, make sure I’m right. Wouldn’t want to short your drawer.”

As the kid does math so visible it hurts, Darnell grabs some gloves from the counter and opens the bread cupboard, pulling out a tray and pointing to Maria to do the same.

“Here. It’ll go faster if we help.”

 

 

 

Natasha’s finished sharpening every knife she keeps on her person and has moved onto handgun maintenance by the time Amora edges Dr. Doom out of the bidding for Bruce; the masked scientist sits back in his chair with a huff that sounds like a horse’s snort coming through the vent of his mask, and his bodyguards fold their arms in identical consternation as the numbers climb past. Amora shoots Doom a green-eyed look that’s so superior, so _familiar_ , that Clint has to close his eyes and breathe deep for a few minutes, reminding himself that Loki isn’t really here, that if he could be here he wouldn’t’ve sent some weak-ass intermediary to look smug and fuck with Clint’s head.

_Quite so, Agent Barton._

_You know, you’n me are far from cool, given how bad you fucked up Dr. Banner’s headgame,_ Clint thinks. _And what happened to knocking, anyway?_

 _My apologies,_ Xavier thinks. _You are quite correct, both about my error with Dr. Banner and about the knocking. Shall I come back later?_

 _May’s well say what you’ve got to say,_ thinks Clint sourly as he watches the numbers on Bruce scoot past one million. He wonders if he’ll even make the minimum sale point.

 _I have some good news,_ Xavier thinks. _Agent Hill has indeed discovered a back entrance into the Coliseum, as I’ve learnt from the panicked mind of the HYDRA employee she has cornered. She is apparently buying sandwiches from him._

Clint blinks.

Xavier continues. _HYDRA is planning to smuggle their guests, as well as any superheroes won at auction, away through this back entrance, while sending large, heavily armored decoy vehicles out the front to draw fire and attention. Director Fury and Agents Coulson and Hill have been in telepathic conference through me in order to determine how best to track the Hulk and his captor._

 _Not for nothing,_ thinks Clint. _But SHIELD **does** have a very large invisible aircraft carrier._

Xavier’s mental voice sounds amused. _A fact which routinely keeps me up at night, Agent Barton._

 

 

 

“We are not using the Helicarrier and that is fucking final,” says Fury, and Steve jams a finger down on the hood of the car they’re leaning on.

“Sir, it is shielded, it’s invisible, it’s heavily armed and capable of stealth pursuit over an indefinite dis—”

“It is also potentially compromised!” Fury explodes, and Steve shuts his mouth abruptly. Around them, three SHIELD personnel look stricken, then promptly try to pretend they weren’t listening. Fury gets right up in Steve’s face. “Not that I wanted to admit that possibility in front of our troops, but being as you seem to have such a hard-on for the truth, let me go ahead and lay some out there for you. That bogus helicopter may just have been the tip of the iceberg.”

“What are you saying?”

“I am saying that the Helicarrier carries a lot of aircraft! Quinjets, fighters, more copters, all of which travel to and from other bases! And I am not launching a single one of them, not till we can perform a thorough vetting, not till we know how deep this thing goes!”

“And so what, we’re just gonna let HYDRA waltz on outta here with our men—”

“I am _not_ saying that—”

“Because it sure as hell looks like we’re not devoting our full forces to—”

“In case you haven’t noticed, our full forces might not be _ours_ to command—”

“Anyone need a sandwich?” Maria Hill says, sauntering up with a plastic bag full of sandwiches hooked over each index finger. Behind her, Darnell is carrying three more such bags, plus four stacked drinks trays. “Because it looks to me like someone could use a Snickers.”

“Don’t you go getting fresh with me, woman,” Fury warns her, but takes the sandwich Darnell offers him. “What is this, tuna salad?”

“Might be, might be ham,” Darnell says. “The HYDRA front over there doesn’t seem any too invested in the freshness of their meat products.”

Halfway through his bite, Fury stills.

“Kidding! Kidding! Yes, it’s tuna salad. Though, I was serious about it being a front. That, it very definitely is,” Darnell informs him, looking somber.

“And we’re eating their sandwiches?” Steve says.

“Yes,” Maria tells him, fishing out a roast beef and handing it to him. “And we’re looking happy about doing it, too. They may be watching us from the Geno’s, and we want to look like we haven’t figured their escape route out.”

Steve tries hard not to look as though he’s inspecting the sandwich, while still inspecting the sandwich.

“Not to worry, I watched the sandwich-making process,” Darnell tells him.

“He’s being modest, he rolled up his sleeves and helped,” Maria informs them, handing out sandwiches to the quickly gathering crowd of SHIELD agents who have sensed food and descended like locusts.

“Hey, the kid was overworked. HYDRA clearly doesn’t care about properly staffing their fronts,” Darnell says. “Anyway, I personally guarantee a cyanide-free sandwich experience.”

“This tuna salad is dry as fuck,” Nick Fury informs all and sundry.

“Hey, I just said cyanide-free,” Darnell says. “Nobody said anything about mayonnaise.”

Everyone munches quietly for a few minutes as the parking lot lights of the Meadowlands flicker to life, filling the air with a soothing hum familiar from school gymnasiums. Steve unwraps a straw for his drink, looks around fruitlessly for a trashcan to place the wrapper in, then shrugs and tucks it into one of the many pockets on his belt. Maria wordlessly unwraps another sandwich and passes it to Fury, who takes it with a grimace.

Darnell takes a big swallow of his sandwich. “So, what’s happening with you guys?”

 

 

 

As bidding between Amora and the Hand reaches past one point two million, Clint detects a noticeable lag on the betting, and way more conferring and whispering between Hand members after each of Amora’s bids. For her part, Amora is apparently drawing from some bottomless well of money—she counters each of the Hand’s bids swiftly, without hesitation, and when they eventually fold to her (at 1.3 million), it is to absolutely no one’s surprise. What _is_ surprising is how Amora waves off all the rapidly advancing HYDRA goons who are carrying guns loaded, Clint guesses, with elephant tranquilizer or the like, instead stepping to the cage herself and locking the Hulk’s gaze with her own, murmuring some words that Thor visibly strains to hear. Stark’s being unusually quiet, for him, and Clint supposes that JARVIS might be doing a little recording right now; Clint, for his part, can’t hear shit, and Natasha just looks confused.

“You getting any of this?” he whispers to her as the Hulk settles, swaying like a drunk as he looks up into Amora’s eyes.

“Not really,” Natasha whispers back. “But it’s not magic.”

“It’s not?”

Natasha shakes her head. “Hypnosis.” She catches Clint’s expression of relief, and hastens to extinguish his small spark of hope (because she’s Russian like that). “That’s not actually better than magic, you know. Might even be more difficult to break him out of. It’s what they used to use on Soviet sleeper agents.”

Clint deflates.

“Once I got hypnotized in group so bad they couldn’t unlock me at all, even though they brought in the senior professors,” Natasha continues, her arms folded and her gaze clinical over the proceedings.

Clint’s ears perk up. Natasha doesn’t talk about the Red Room very much. “What happened?”

She looks at him. “What do you mean, what happened?”

“I mean, how did they snap you out of it?”

She looks at him levelly. The look goes on for quite a long time. “They didn’t,” she finally says, in that tone that means _you’re an idiot_. She turns back to the door of the cell and they watch quietly for a few more moments.

It is Natasha who finally breaks the silence. “I’m really glad all they were teaching that day was how to mess with gullible Westerners—ow!” because Clint has just smacked her arm. It’s like, his patriotic duty or something.

 

 

 

“Is it like, a patriotism thing going on here?” Maria asks as Steve fastidiously collects every scrap of litter from the demolished meal, smoothing out the sandwich wrappers and folding them before putting them in the bag. “Are you protecting Mother Earth, or just this particular scrap of New Jersey?”

Steve’s smile is rueful. “New Jersey smelled worse in my time. Lots of fishing. I’m just trying to keep the future’s standards high.” He reaches for a piece of straw wrapper that’s caught on the windshield wiper of the SHIELD Jeep. When he’s got it, he speculatively rubs the thin plastic between his fingers. “I guess there’s no point in uh, reusing any of this stuff.”

“No,” says Maria. “But some of it can be recycled.”

Steve brightens noticeably.

“Break’s over,” Fury says, walking up and addressing Darnell. “Specialist Weeks, how much more fuel does your chopper have?”

“About nine flight hours, sir.”

“Good. Think you can follow a vehicle with something real heavy in the trunk when it leaves that Geno’s?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Think you can do it without getting noticed?”

“I flew a hundred and eighty separate night missions over Sadr City without getting a rocket launched at me,” Darnell volunteers.

“Good,” Fury says. “Go get started on your pre-flight checks, then.” Darnell scampers off, and Maria looks wonderingly at Fury for a moment. He catches her gaze.

“What?”

“His flight jumpsuit doesn’t have his name on it,” Maria observes.

“So?”

“So, you knew his name. That’s impressive.”

Fury looks irate. “You saying you think all us black people in SHIELD _know each other_ , Hill?”

Maria’s mouth snaps shut, her eyes widening.

Fury erupts. “You’re damn straight we do! Look around this place, Hill! You see a lot of brothers here? Bet your ass I know Specialist Weeks’s name! Him and every other one of the too-few black men and women we got working for us! And now we got Nazis crawling outta the damn woodwork, you can rest assured I will be calling on Specialist Weeks to do everything he goddamn can! And Hoyuela too, while we’re at it, and Nguyen and Clark and everyone else in this place who might be particularly disinclined to turn traitor because their color ain’t welcome on the other side! And that is _ **not enough people to call on**_ , Hill! You can call that racial profiling if you want, I truly don’t give a fuck.” Fury stomps off, his leather coat swirling behind him.

Steve and Maria watch him go.

“That is one impressive man,” Steve says.

“Yeah, he does grow on you,” Maria admits.

 

 

 

When Amora finally finishes murmuring her sweet nothings to the Hulk and motions for the metal grates to be rolled back up into the ceiling, Clint has a brief moment of hopeful anticipation, but is quickly disappointed when the Hulk doesn’t smash anything, just stands there vacantly, a long string of drool coming from the corner of his mouth. Stark in particular looks crestfallen to see his big green buddy lead away like an obedient Golden Retriever, though he does crack a smile at the noises of separating metal as Amora and her musclebound bodyguard attempt to get the Hulk to fit inside their van. Clint can’t see the proceedings from his cell, but Amora’s high-pitched exclamations as the struts give way _are_ awfully satisfying.

 _Something tells me this is gonna be one easy van to track,_ he thinks experimentally out into the void, and after a few seconds, hears Xavier’s response:

_Indeed, Agent Barton, there is a helicopter being prepared as we speak to follow Dr. Banner’s van. If I am not mistaken about her intentions, Agent Hill will be on board._

_That’s the best news I’ve gotten all day,_ Clint thinks. _Has Thor got any ideas about how Hill can dehypnotize the Hulk when she catches up with him?_

 _A few,_ thinks Xavier. _Unfortunately for Agent Hill, all of them involve antagonizing the Hulk quite severely_.

 _Well, Maria needs some excitement in her life,_ Clint thinks, and Xavier must pass the thought on to Phil, because the next thing he hears through Xavier’s channel is the sound of Coulson laughing. Clint grins. _Got any ideas on who’s getting cracked out of here next?_ he thinks at Xavier, and then he notices Natasha doing her little warm-up finger-stretches nearby, the ones that look like a chartered accountant getting ready for tax season but which, on Tasha, mean she’s about ready to choke a bitch. _Nevermind,_ he thinks. _I think I’ve got it figured out._

“You’re next?” he whispers to Natasha, who nods.

“Unless Xavier got it wrong,” she says, snugging down the Velcro closures on her gloves like a power hitter approaching the plate. She saunters to the front of the cell, glances downward at the sandy floor, which is being cleared of unconscious lions by sweating HYDRA members, four to a cat.

“Anything I can do to help?” he says as the guard pulls open their cell door and gestures to Natasha.

“Just try not to get yourself killed until I come back for you,” she says in her snottiest tone on her way out the cell door, chin held high, not looking at him. Good old Tasha. She always did know how to act.

 

 

 

As Natasha is escorted down the Coliseum levels towards the floor, Phil hears the chant starting, although his limited, hacked access to HYDRA’s video feeds means he can’t see who starts it. His money’s on Stark.

“Wi-DOW, Wi-DOW, Wi-DOW, Wi-DOW…”

It’s only three voices strong, but since one of those voices is Thor’s, it sounds like more, and the effect is cheering; Phil draws a smiley face next to Stark’s name on the envelope where Nick’s bids are scribbled. Natasha passes in front of the camera that Phil can see, and he doesn’t need to see much of her face on the grainy footage to know she’s smiling, can see in her strut that she’s loose and ready to dish out some serious injuries. He hopes HYDRA puts some of their best men into the cage with Natasha. He’d like to see some of HYDRA’s best get fed fistfuls of each other’s intestines. Or maybe she’ll do the thigh-twist-off thingy with the heads—that’s always a crowd-pleaser. The chant reaches a deafening peak as she reaches the ground floor and stands there like a prizefighter, turning slowly, soaking it in as the grates that surrounded Hulk begin their descent. Stark’s actually clanking his prison cup against the bars of his cell door to make more racket, and Thor’s doing the same with Mjolnir. HYDRA hasn’t got Clint on the video feed right now, but Phil would know that piercing two-fingered whistle of his anywhere.

“The legendary Black Widow, originally of Smolensk,” the auctioneer, who can recognize a moment when it’s being handed to him, is saying. “Over three hundred and eighty three confirmed kills—”

“—Yeah, that _**you**_ know about!!” hoots Clint from the upper decks.

“—and bearing in her blood the Soviet Union’s very finest anti-aging, regeneration and auto-immune boosting serums, capable of up to 600% faster reflexes than ordinary civilians, fully trained in over fifty martial arts forms and thirty classes of weaponry and in possession of secret intelligence worth millions, ladies and gentlemen, you are quite simply looking at Death.”

On the feed, Phil sees Natasha crack a smile, and makes a mental note to get her a gym bag, or maybe a jacket, monogrammed with the title for Christmas.

“And you get to shoot her in the head,” the auctioneer says.

The pencil in Phil’s fingers stills.

“Ah,” says the auctioneer, “You are thinking, what are we bidding on? A corpse? A paraplegic? Henri, the guns, if you please,” and here comes a HYDRA teen carrying a milk crate full of machine guns, which he hands out to every one of the bidders, along with one extra clip of ammo apiece.

“If one of you lands a lucky shot, and the famous Black Widow turns out to be mortal, then yes,” the auctioneer continues, a nasty smirk twisting his mouth. “We will indeed be auctioning off the remains, permeated as they are with the valuable serum. In fact, you may even find the extraction process _easier_ without a live Natasha Romanov to resist you. One may even say we have done you a favor in removing a considerable obstacle to harvesting the serum. Well,” and here he looks up at the screens where Phil’s face is projected. “We will have done _most_ of you a favor. Director Fury, if you’re hearing this, I suppose you win some and you lose some.”

Phil decides he can have that heart attack later, when Natasha doesn’t need him. She needs him to think right now. “SHIELD does not pay for bodies, Herr Mueller,” he snaps. “If one of your customers kills our agent, not only will we not participate in the bidding, but you will have lost what little restraint has kept Nick Fury from sending a nuke through your letterbox.”

“Imagine my terror, Agent Coulson,” Herr Mueller replies drily. “We are prepared to take that risk, especially since Agent Barton and Mister Stark are still so graciously providing collateral. I believe theirs would be a loss that even the legendarily pragmatic Director Fury would find unacceptable. And speaking of pragmatism, I will note that a dead Widow cannot sell intelligence, a thought I am quite sure has occurred to your director.” He shrugs theatrically. “Ah well. I suppose sometimes one must choose between chicken soup and fresh eggs, yes? Henri, has everyone got their weapon?”

“Ja!”

“Inge, are the grates secured?”

“Ja!”

“Excellent! Now, let me explain the rules of this little demonstration. You all have two clips. When the last bullet is fired, the challenge is over, and we auction the Widow if she is still alive, and the corpse if she is not. You may have noticed that the Widow is still armed. This is not because we would find it unsporting to shoot a naked woman, but because of the practical difficulties associated with disarming Miss Romanov.”

“You mean you can’t!” hollers Clint from the upper floors, and the auctioneer looks irritated.

“Feuerspucker, if you please.”

And as Phil hears the distinctive roar of a blast of Extremis fire, he can’t help it—he rockets out of his chair and stands, helplessly terrified, the knocked-over chair spinning its wheels in the background as he waits to see, hear anything which will tell him if Clint is still alive. He’s dimly aware of Jemma, Warren in the background, diving for the tangle of wires and laptops with which they’ve hacked into HYDRA’s video feeds, but he doesn’t really feel anything at all, nothing save the throbbing of his eardrums and the pounding wash of static in his head until Xavier comes in with a message of his own:

_He is alive, Agent Coulson. Injured, but alive._

Phil closes his eyes, lets out his breath. He has just given away his hand. Sitting back down, he prepares to face the consequences.

The auctioneer is looking into the cameras with a nasty smirk. “Why, Agent Coulson. How nice to know you care.”

“Now would be a good time for your mother to begin looking for your dental records,” Phil informs him.

“Really,” sighs Herr Mueller. “A ‘your mother’ joke. Americans are so predictable.” He pounds the mallet on the podium twice, and turns his attention back to the circle of rapt spectators; then, slowly, to the circle of sand below. The completely empty circle of sand.

“Thankfully,” Phil says, “Russians aren’t quite so predictable.”

Right then, the video feed goes black as all the lights in the Coliseum go out. In the darkness, Phil hears screaming; gunfire. Thinks about it for a moment. The auctioneer was right: it _was_ a really good nickname. He leans forward, clears his throat.

“Ladies and gentlemen, say hello to Death.”


	7. Chapter 7

The first thing Clint’s aware of through the greasy red haze of his swollen-shut eyelids is Natasha’s voice: “Careful. Don’t hurt him.”

And then Thor’s: “I fear I may despite my care. He is badly burnt.”

And then Stark’s: “Yeah, not trying to rush things here, but we got company.”

Clint wants to tell them that science-Nazi fire hurts even worse than regular old Jeep-exploding fire, but even tiny glottal movements send a scorching wave of neural feedback blaring through his system, so he lets himself get picked up and princess-carried by Thor in what feels like a very caring way—

 

\--at least until they get out of the cell and the big guy has to throw himself—and Clint—to the floor to avoid what sounds and feels like a very close-range blast of Extremis fire. The howl that escapes Clint’s throat hurts every bit as much as the drop, but is quickly muffled by Thor’s body as the god flattens himself on top of Clint, shielding him from the worst of the blast. The heat of the fire abruptly vanishes, and Clint hears the two-part thud—knees, then skull—of a body hitting the floor right next to him; a second later, warm liquid pools under his face. He smells bile.

“You couldn’t have busted out the saw laser _before_?” Natasha snaps, and Clint hears the whining ker-thunk of Stark’s boots approaching. Thor gingerly removes himself from Clint’s back; hands slide underneath Clint’s body from all directions.

“It’s a one-off,” Stark says as Clint is hoisted. “Wanted to get the other two guards, had to wait till they lined up.”

“Ugh,” Natasha grumbles, and Clint feels his bearers’ progress slowing. “Did you have to aim at their intestines?”

“Sorry,” says Stark. “Next time I’ll behead.”

“Please do.”

“Friends,” Thor says, “Take him—”—and then Clint’s feet get handed off and Mjolnir makes a wobbly little noise as it shoots out and describes a wide sonic parabola; Clint feels the breeze as the hammer flies past his cheek and back to Thor’s hand. A beat later, several more body-thuds, echoing Mjolnir’s trajectory. As Thor re-takes Clint’s legs, Clint feels a scraping pain against his thigh and realizes he still has Stark’s inhaler-based arrowhead, the one Cap tossed him, jammed inside his pocket. “Strk,” he grunts, his throat clicking stickily around the words. “Strk.”

“Katniss, you’re gonna have to speak up, can’t hear a thing in this suit,” Stark says, and Natasha hisses at him.

“You idiot, he’s _hurt_. Slow _down_ so I can listen to him.”

And Clint gets set down on the floor again, feels Natasha’s hair brush his face. Considerate assassin that she is, she quickly pulls it away before the tiny ends of the strands can get into his burns. Clint makes an explosive gesture with his right hand, accompanied by a “pfff” sound effect, which is about as much of a word as he can manage right now. Then he points at his pocket, hoping to hell she gets it. She does, reaching across his body and rummaging around in his many pockets until she locates the arrowhead.

“Woah, he still had that when they hit him?” Stark says. “He’s lucky he didn’t blow himself up.”

Clint hears Natasha’s answering grunt. Great. Now he’s burnt, semi-conscious, and Tony Stark thinks he’s totally incompetent with explosives. Whatever. Clint is _great_ with explosives. After a pause, during which there’s apparently a lot of non-verbal communication, or possibly a slight blackout on Clint’s part, he’s not sure, Natasha presses the arrowhead back into his palm.

“Better you keep this,” she says, leaving the _if you get cornered and need a way out_ unspoken. Clint has no idea when his life became the bad part of a zombie movie, but he’s willing to bet this shit never happens up in Westchester.

_Oh, you would be surprised, Agent Barton._

Clint’s so relieved to be able to talk to someone without using his mouth that he doesn’t even mind the not-knocking bit. _Tell me. How bad is it_ , he thinks, and thankfully Xavier doesn’t even pretend not to understand.

_It appears to be quite bad, Agent Barton. Although you cannot see them, you have sustained burns over almost sixty percent of your body._

It doesn’t feel like that much, thinks Clint.

 _Ironically, that is the worst symptom you could report_ , thinks Xavier. _You can feel the burns on your face and neck because they are less severe. The burns over your back, from the sustained fire after you fell, have resulted in nerve damage, therefore, reduced pain._

Clint would love once—just once—for a voice in his head to be delivering good news.

 _Well, that I can provide_ , thinks Xavier. _Your injuries **are** survivable. Given prompt medical attention._

Clint thinks maybe Xavier is operating under a different definition of “good news” than he is, but tries to keep his thought to himself. Apparently intentions like that count with Xavier, because he receives back nothing but silence.

 

 

 

Maria catches up to Darnell just as the rotors on the copter are starting up. She hollers at him from the door: “Got room for a passenger?” His grin is all the answer she needs. She climbs in, buckles up, and hollers at him as they lift off, “I should mention that to complete this mission, we’re going to have to piss off the Hulk!”

Darnell just laughs and shakes his head. “Never thought you were gonna be an easy first date, Hill.”

 

 

 

 

“Talk to me,” Phil says as soon as Xavier comes out from under the Cerebro helmet, looking like death warmed over. He looks straight at Phil, his black eyes filled with something that looks dangerously like compassion.

_The news is not good, Agent Coulson. He is badly burnt and in urgent need of medical attention. He is conscious, but he may not be for much longer. His teammates are carrying him._

_Give me the odds_ , Phil thinks.

 _Without a formal medical degree, it’s difficult to say for certain_ , Xavier thinks politely, as if he hasn’t casually skimmed half a dozen advanced medical degrees from other people’s brains, _but thirty percent._

Phil nods, turns away. On the monitors, HYDRA’s video feeds show darkness, interrupted by flashes of light so bright they overwhelm the monitors. There are crashing noises, intermittent gunfire. Somewhere in that mess, Clint is being carried by a Norse god, Natasha Romanov, and Tony Stark. The knowledge is less comforting to Phil than it probably should be. He turns to Simmons.

“Jemma, get me a secure line to Pepper Potts.”

 

 

 

 

Clint isn’t sure why his teammates are carrying him down instead of upwards, but down is definitely the direction they’re heading in, with pauses to deal with various obstacles (panicked science-Nazis, katana-wielding members of the Hand, a really big pile of unconscious lions) that Clint identifies mainly by sound (except for the lions, which he figures out because his team members lay him down _on top of the pile_ while they deal with an angry mutant, who, from the sound of him, is some sort of a rattlesnake-human hybrid, or possibly a gigantic maraca, Clint’s not sure. Either way, a pile of sedated lions makes for an unexpectedly delightful place to pass out when you’re injured. The things you learn in SHIELD! Clint could write a book.) But pretty soon his teammates pick him up from his snuggly pile and _run_ , and Clint _does not want to know_ what or who is behind them to make Tony Stark run like he stole it, but it’s a jiggling clanking ride, and all Clint can hear is Thor’s heavy breathing and Stark’s increasingly frequent repulsor blasts and Natasha’s total lack of any noise whatsoever, and it’s no surprise when the run terminates abruptly in a skidding halt and the frantic noise of elevator buttons being mashed repeatedly. Clint never thought he was going to have to include the phrase _unavoidable elevator usage in a combat situation_ in an after-action report, but that is clearly where this day is headed. (A significant portion of SHIELD’s initial training is devoted to emphasizing and re-emphasizing the fact that Elevators Are Not Our Friends. Grisly photographs of crushed and dismembered bodies are shown. The trainees are taken into actual elevator shafts and shown in great detail how the action movies have lied and there is not room for a human being on, beside, or underneath an elevator car. And just in case any of them still harbor illusions about the efficiency of elevators to get to higher floors in urban combat situations, they are finally taken to Arlington National Cemetery and shown the graves of CIA Agent Prescott, whose doors opened on a room engulfed in fire; FBI Agent Gille, whose doors opened into room full of terrorists; and SHIELD Agent Jackson, whose doors opened into kill-box of one of the world’s better snipers.)

Natasha: “Goddamnit, Stark, make it come.”

Stark: “Flattering as it is that you think I can control a freight elevator installed by fucking **Nazis** in the **Meadowlands** , I’m not—oh wait, hang on.” There’s a clunk, then a whining drillbit noise, and then the “ding” of a pair of elevator doors opening.

Stark: “Yeah I really **am** that good.”

And Clint is loaded like so much charred beef into an elevator, which, how dire has the situation got to be for Natasha to OK _that_? Clint doesn’t feel _that_ bad. He can’t move much, it’s true. Or see. His throat and lungs and scalp and neck and front hurt like a sonofabitch. And if what Xavier said is true, he’s probably not gonna be posing for any skin mags in the near future. But Clint doesn’t feel like he’s on the verge of death, he just feels… tired. Shitty and comfy at the same time, like someone slipped him a roofie. Clint’s been roofied a lot. Once he even roofied himself when he needed to get some sleep. It seemed like a good idea at the time. (Which if someone ever writes a book about his life, that should probably be the title:  Clint Barton: It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time.)

“T’sha,” he murmurs, wanting to say something to her in case it’s really that bad.

There’s a brush of fabric near his ear, and then Clint feels her hand on his face. Clint wonders if Stark knows where this elevator is going. He wonders if Bruce is going to survive whatever Amora’s doing to him. He wonders if they’re even going to make it out of the elevator shaft. He wonders if he told Coulson that he loved him this morning. He’s pretty sure he just said something dumb. He lifts his hand, feels Tasha take it. She’s hunkered down next to him, her breath soft across his face. There are two other people in the elevator, and they’re not small people, but right now it just feels like Tasha and him.

“T’sha.” Clint _wants_ to say things, but his stupid throat is all fucked up, and it’s not like he would know the right thing to say anyway. To make up for all the hurt he’s caused Tasha over the years, to tell her how important she’s become to him anyway, to tell her that he hopes he hasn’t fucked up her whole life. To tell her that if someone had to be there when he died, he’s glad it was her. In the end, he doesn’t say any of it. He says “G’lbka.” Little darling.

 

And then the doors open.

 

 

 

 

“Is it just me,” Maria finally says, after a decent interval of time, “Or do you feel like maybe they should have showed up by now?” They’re hovering low about two blocks away from the Geno’s Subs, binoculars trained on the service entrance, waiting for anything that even remotely looks like it could be used to transport a Hulk. So far, there’s been nothing except the teenager who served Maria and Darnell sandwiches earlier, taking the trash out.

Darnell’s face is grim. “Yeah, it’s not just you.”

Through the binoculars, Maria carefully inspects the teenager as he throws the trash in the dumpster and then lights a cigarette. Even from the chopper, she can tell his hands are shaking—the glow of the cigarette end is all wobbly. Adrenaline runoff, she supposes. She lowers the binoculars.

“Could there be another exit we haven’t found?”

“Possibly,” Darnell says. “But big enough to move the Hulk out of without us seeing?”

Maria grimaces. “You know what that leaves us with, possibility-wise?”

“Magic?”

“Yep,” Maria says, staring at the Geno’s. “God, I hate magic.”

“For a woman who hates magic, you sure picked a career that puts you in contact with an awful lot of it,” Darnell observes.

“It didn’t when I started,” Maria points out. “When I started, SHIELD mainly dealt with warlords and drug kingpins!”

“Ah, the easy life,” Darnell deadpans. “I can see why dealing with the occasional fairy godmother would really throw you for a loop.”

“Shut up,” Maria grumbles, picking the binoculars back up. After a second she sets them right back down. “And what about you, Mister I Flew A Hundred And Eighty Night Missions Over Sadr City—”

“You noticed.”

“—and never once got shot down,” Maria finishes serenely, a faint blush staining her cheeks. “You telling me you’re not in it for the danger? The adrenaline?”

Darnell shrugs. “I got in it to be near my dad. He was driving trucks for Halliburton, you know, outside the Green Zone. I figured if I could make things safer for him, well. Him and my mom had been divorced for years and they never got along. Felt like a chance to get to know him.”

“Was it?” says Maria.

“Sort of,” Darnell says. “We got about thirteen months. Pancreatic cancer. It snuck up on him real fast. He was working right up until the end. I got to be there when he died at least.”

“I’m sorry,” Maria says, and means it. She’s set her binoculars down and is looking at Darnell, her I-am-giving-you-endless-shit face replaced by her I-am-feeling-things-about-you face. The faces aren’t that different.

Darnell swallows. “Thanks,” he says quietly, raising his own binoculars to his face. The teenager outside of the Geno’s finishes his cigarette and turns to go back inside, and that’s when a white van, riding very low on its suspension and with two or three suspicious-looking bulges in its side paneling, comes **through** the wall of the Geno’s and skids to a halt in the parking lot in a cloud of rubble.

“Holy shit!” Maria exclaims, and Darnell reaches up to flick on the switches for the chopper’s targeting systems before taking a careful grip on the controls. The van, shedding chunks of stucco like hail from its roof, rocks slightly in a cloud of white drywall dust. Maria stares intently through her binoculars at the woman sitting in the driver’s seat. It’s hard to make out any details except that Amora is _pissed_ —her arms are stiff in front of her, hands clamped tight around the steering wheel, and she’s staring at the SHIELD chopper like it owes her money. Maria has the strong impression that Amora doesn’t need binoculars to see _her_ just fine. Which is creepy.

“Alright, what’s our play?” she asks Darnell, whose brow furrows.

“I say we shoot out her front tires,” he says after a moment of consideration.

“Go for it,” Maria says without shifting her gaze from Amora.

“Loving that hands-off, long-leash supervisory attitude,” Darnell says, aiming the cannons and firing neat punches of four rounds apiece into each front tire. The van sags dispiritedly, its front bumper touching the asphalt. Inside the van, something big shifts, and three more chunks of stucco slide off the roof, turning to powder as they hit the ground. Amora tightens her grip on the steering wheel and glares daggers at the chopper, but nothing more happens and Maria’s about to call bullshit on this whole sorcery thing when Darnell says:

“Oh, shit,” and his arms flies out to shield Maria’s front, like a parent in a braking minivan. Maria gives him a look, which he doesn’t notice because he’s busy flying the helicopter up and backwards, _fast_.

“What is it!?” she says.

“BUCKLE UP, NOW.”

“I’m buckled, but what’s going on??! What are we dealing with?”

“She’s filling the van with some kinda vapor,” Darnell says, looking in his rearview as he maneuvers in reverse down the great steel-and-glass canyon between a bank and another bank. “Possibly explosive.”

“What!?!” Maria shrieks again, but she’s looking through the binoculars now and yep, that is definitely a thick whitish cloud of vapor filling the driver’s compartment of the van and rolling out the cracked windows to pool on the asphalt. “Why would she do that, there’s no one there to kill except one teenager and the Hulk! And herself!”

“We’re close enough to kill,” Darnell points out, “Depending on what kinda gas that is.” He clears the roof of the bank on one side and quickly turns the chopper around, putting distance between them. “The right kind of explosives, the shockwave could reach across the parking lot. You gotta get ahold of Fury, tell him to get his people out of there.”

Maria reaches for the walkie-talkie in the chopper—thinks better of it and starts to place a telepathic call to Professor Xavier—then notices something odd in the rearview mirror. “Darnell. Darnell, look.”

“What?”

“The van, it’s not there any more.”

_“IT BLEW UP?!”_

“No I mean it’s _gone!!_ Look in your rearview. Am I missing it?”

Darnell cranes, then turns and looks over his shoulder. “What the _fuck_ ,” he says.

“See why I hate magic?” says Maria.

 

 

 

 

“You know what I hate?” Tony Stark announces to the world in general. “People who barbeque my friends.”

“I am sorry for your troubles, Mister Stark, truly I am,” says the auctioneer, “but you have a rather more pressing concern at the moment.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“Agent Romanov has just killed three members of the Hand organization,” Herr Mueller says. It sounds like it’s just him in the hallway. “Only one would have been enough to ensure all of your violent deaths, plus the deaths of everyone in your families, no matter how distant the relation.” The elevator doors ding in protest and someone smacks their hand over the sensor, keeping them open.

“And what about you, huh,” says Tony. “You brought them here. What do you think they’re going to do to _you?_ ”

“What happens to me is utterly irrelevant, Mister Stark,” the auctioneer says. “I am HYDRA. Cut off one head and two more will take its place, yes? You have no idea how comforting that notion is when faced with death.”

Clint guesses that means Natasha’s taken aim.

“You’re right, I don’t,” says Tony. “But that’s cause I’m not replaceable, unlike you. Now, I frankly don’t care whether you live or are dismembered slowly by Agent Romanov here, but I saw a whole hell of a lot of the Master Race: Junior Edition on the way down into this pit, and I’m betting five or six of ‘em are yours. So if Frau Mueller and all the little Muellers would like to see Daddy get home with the usual number of heads, you better tell me where Hocus Pocus ran off to, cause she has something of mine and I want it back.”

“The Doctor?” Herr Mueller sounds incredulous. “She is going to use him for spare parts, Mister Stark. His brain is probably on a median strip somewhere in Delaware by now.”

“Please can I kill him now,” Natasha says flatly.

“In a minute,” Tony says. “Explain this to me, because I don’t speak stupid. If she’s using Bruce Banner for spare parts, I have to tell you, the brain is what you want. Muscle can be bought. That kind of intellect, can’t.”

“Amora is no great lover of science, Mister Stark, nor is she a great thinker. She made some inquiries prior to the auction, and made it clear her interests lay with the Hulk, not the Doctor. We advised her to remove the brain, if she wished to prevent any relapses to his more human form.”

“Okay,” says Tony, “Now you can kill him,” and that’s when the roof of the elevator gets ripped off and Clint hears about a million guns being cocked above his head. There’s a shotgun among them, Clint can tell. There’s just something about the sound of a shotgun being racked. It stands out against any sonic backdrop: mortar fire, industrial machinery, the Jonas Brothers. Clint really wishes he didn’t know some of the shit he knows sometimes.

“Do it, and everyone in this box dies,” a calm, very slightly Bavarian female voice says.

“Mister Stark, please to meet Frau Mueller and all the little Muellers,” the auctioneer says.

 

 

 

 

“Miss Potts, it’s Phil. No—no, this is not that phone call. He’s alive. No, they’re all alive, but I need you to listen. Clint’s hurt and we’re running out of time,” Phil says, and in the Stark Tower penthouse, Pepper Potts snaps into action.

 

 

 

 

“What do we do now,” Maria says flatly, and both she and Darnell stare blankly out the window for a few beats before simultaneously jumping as a message comes in from Professor Xavier:

_Might I suggest a flight to the nearest hospital with an emergency center?_

Maria and Darnell exchange a glance.

“I hope that’s not a veiled warning,” says Darnell. “Because if it is, he’s missing the veil.”

 _Was that a literal set of directions, Professor Xavier?_ Maria thinks as tactfully as possible.

Xavier’s mental voice comes back amused. _Indeed, Agent Hill. Amora is quite skilled at mental shielding, but one hardly needs telepathy to determine her intentions or whereabouts when she insists upon posting them to Facebook. I believe her most recent status update reads, “If I only had a brain!!!1!LOL”_

What does she need a brain for? Maria thinks, as Darnell wheels the helicopter around, making a beeline towards Meadowlands Hospital.

 _Unfortunately, she wishes to replace the brain of the unfortunate Doctor Banner with a mind more pliable to her bidding. I believe she intends to find such a mind among the very recently deceased or dying. Once she arrives, I would imagine she will remove the Doctor’s brain with whatever tools are available and insert the new one. Possibly backwards. She is no great mind,_ sighs Xavier, _but unfortunately her magic is very powerful and should compensate for any shortcomings in the neurosurgery department._

Maria’s heard enough. “Specialist Weeks?” she says, yanking out her sidearm and chambering a round.

Darnell snaps to attention, which almost conceals the wriggle of pleasure working its way across his shoulder blades at her tone. “Yes Ma’am?”

_“Put a move on it.”_

 

 

 

 

Inside the world’s most crowded elevator, tensions are high. Clint is lifted, carefully and slowly, by his teammates, under the barked directions of Frau Mueller and the children, who, if Clint is counting voices and sounds correctly, are either three or four boys between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five, all wearing combat boots, all heavily armed and clanking with ammo, probably all Extremis’d to the gills and ready to blow. Delightful. They surround the team, two in the back and three in the front, and lead the slow procession down the hallway.

 _Professor,_ Clint thinks. _You gotta get my team to leave me. I got the arrowhead, I can take all these assholes out, they just gotta get clear of me._

_Please try to relax, Agent Barton. Your extraction is on the way._

My what? Clint thinks, and just then hears a high, descending whining, like incoming artillery but louder, and it’s coming _down the elevator shaft_ , and then there’s an explosion of drywall dust and Clint is grabbed by something he can’t see and trapped, trapped like a mummy in its case and he’s screaming but all he can feel is velocity and muffled crashes through a like football helmet and then there’s _JARVIS_ of all fucking people: “Hang on tight, Agent Barton,” and suddenly Clint’s case takes a sickening upward swoop and he gets it, he gets it now, he’s **INSIDE ONE OF THE FUCKING IRON MAN SUITS** ,and the thumps on his not-football-helmet are the suit _punching through floors_ on its way up to the surface of the Meadowlands, and Clint feels his stomach dropping farther and farther away as the velocity builds and the impacts come faster and faster, and goddamnit, he’s gonna be the first man ever to puke inside the Iron Man suit, and then there’s a dizzyingly heavy impact and suddenly he’s free, clear, shooting up into the sky with meteoric speed. The suit slows, then turns in a graceful arc and lowers him, and as soon as the face mask pops free and he can taste cool night air he’s retching, heaving, and he can hear voices: “Get that thing off of him,” and “Get him on a stretcher,” and “Clint, can you hear me?”, and there are hands on him and he sends out a desperate thought to Xavier: _Please, send the suit back in for Tasha, get my team out._

Xavier comes back: _That will not be necessary, Agent Barton. They are coming, right now, out of the hole you just made_ , and Clint hears people hollering “Stand clear!” and “Watch out!” before a screaming wash of repulsors and thunder announce the arrival of Thor and Iron Man at the surface, but he can’t hear Tasha, he can’t see her because Tasha never makes any noise at all. Clint’s struggling now, fighting to sit up against the many hands trying to wrestle him down to the stretcher, and he’s screaming for Tasha or he thinks he is, and they’ve got a needle in him, and the drugs take him down fighting all the way.

 

He is told later that he broke three EMT’s noses trying to hang onto consciousness as the drugs took him under.

 

 

 

 

Thor gently sets Natasha down on the surface of the parking lot, and she runs towards the ambulances, only to be met by Steve Rogers, who tells her that Clint’s has already being transported to the hospital before pulling her into a comforting hug, which, because he is Captain America, is sort of like getting embraced by a Sherman tank. Then he hugs Thor, which Natasha watches with interest because she’s never seen a Sherman tank engage with an aircraft carrier. Tony, as soon as his boots hit asphalt, shucks the regular Iron Man armor, kicks it sideways into suitcase mode and runs towards the prone Hulkbuster, shooing aside the swarm of onlooking SHIELD personnel— “Watch out, stand back kids, billionaire coming through”—and hopping into the empty chest cavity that Clint’s just been yanked out of. He barks an order to JARVIS and, as the Hulkbuster snaps shut around him, rises to his feet like a walking Tonka Toy and stomps over to the edge of the hole in the parking lot before firing about eighteen tear gas canisters straight down. Natasha hears Tony’s voice, almost comically distorted through the massive Hulkbuster speakers: “There. That oughtta keep ‘em busy for a while.” He turns and lets his visor pop up. “So, where’d they take Birdbrain?”

Natasha turns back to the three EMTs who are sitting with identical expressions and blood-streaked chins on a spare stretcher, noses identically stuffed with cotton. One of them points toward Meadowlands Hospital.

Natasha turns back to Tony. “You coming?”

Tony has a look on his face like he’s listening to something Natasha can’t hear. Either that or he’s taking a dump inside the Hulkbuster. He holds up a “wait a minute” finger, which doesn’t clarify matters. She waits. Nick Fury is walking over towards them, his trenchcoat flapping in the breeze, even though there isn’t much breeze in evidence. Natasha supposes that dramatic wind conditions just follow Fury around on principle. Fury walks to the edge of the crater in the parking lot. He puts his hands on his thighs and leans out over it, bellowing down: “Attention motherfuckers! You are now in a hole! We are at the _entrance_ to your hole! Do I need to make a prison joke, or are you going to come the fuck out with your hands the fuck up??!”

The answer comes back in very faint, very angry German. Nick shakes his head and stands up. “This is gonna take a while. Cap, you got the keys?”

Steve holds up a set of ambulance keys in response.

“Good. Best get after them, then.”

“Yes, sir,” Steve says, and Natasha begins to get the feeling that there’s something she hasn’t been read in on. One look at Thor’s guilty face confirms it. She turns to Fury. “Sir?”

“Amora got away with Doctor Banner,” Fury tells her. “Xavier thinks she’s gone to Meadowlands Hospital to try and replace his brain. We didn’t wanna alarm you down there when _there was nothing you could do about it_ ,” he says, his voice rising in response to the murderous expression Natasha isn’t even attempting to hide. “Agent Hill and Specialist Weeks are in pursuit, Agent. He’s in good hands,” but Natasha isn’t listening. She’s heading towards the ambulance, which Steve has already started—he leans across the seat and throws the passenger door open for her, and she climbs in, followed immediately by Thor. It’s a very crowded ambulance. Thor closes the door and she leans over him, sticking her head out the window.

“Stark, you coming?”

“Soon as Rhodey gets here to contain these assholes, I’m right behind you, go, go!” says Stark, firing three more flashbangs down into the hole for good measure, and Steve lays rubber on his way out of the Meadowlands.

 

 

 

 

Xavier comes out from under Cerebro’s helmet looking like he’s gone six rounds with Holyfield, and Phil rushes to help Jemma free Xavier’s wheelchair from the tangle of thick cables pooling at the apparatus’s feet and push him down off the platform.

“Agents, I am so sorry, but I think that may be all the interaction with the early Cerebro of which I am capable for this evening,” Xavier says, after several deep breaths. Phil reaches forward and takes Xavier’s hand.

“You’ve done more than enough,” he says fervently, and means it. “You’ve done everything. We never could have gotten them out of there without your help.”

“Hardly,” says Xavier. “You have an excellent team, Agent, one of which you should be very proud. I was happy to make their acquaintances, and that of your lovely assistant as well. But now, I think I must retire if I am to be of any use at all for the next several weeks.”

“Of course,” says Phil, clearing the way; after taking one glance at Jemma and Warren, who are wearing identical expressions of nervous woe at the prospect of their contact coming to an end, he sighs and goes to the door. “You two, put away the gear while I get the chopper pilot. We leave for New Jersey in ten.”

Only when he has closed the door to Cerebro does he allow himself to fall apart, quietly hyperventilating, trying not to make too much noise even though he knows it’s pointless, trying to be _quiet_ in Westchester. Xavier, tactfully, says nothing at all.

 

 

 

 

As Maria and Darnell approach the helicopter pad on the roof of the Meadowlands Hospital the chopper’s radio flares into life for the first time in what feels like hours: “Unnamed chopper, this is Meadowlands Hospital, please identify yourself.”

Darnell thumbs down the mic, clearly thinking about what he’s going to say, then lets up on the button again. He looks at Maria. “How the fuck do I explain this?”

Maria motions for the mic, and he passes it over. “Meadowlands control room, this is SHIELD chopper PA008 in pursuit of a suspect. She is heavily armed with unknown weapons of extraterrestrial origin and is heading in your direction with the intention of violating one of your patients by removing their brain and inserting it into the cranial cavity of one of our team members, whom she is holding prisoner in her white Econoline van.”

There is an extended period of silence from the control tower, during which Darnell holds position, hovering just off the roof’s edge, and Maria stares at the dark, reflective windows of the control tower. After a few moments, she keys down the mic again.

“Control, that prisoner is the Hulk.”

The response comes back immediately. “Chopper PA008, you are cleared for landing.”

 

Entering the hospital from the rooftop stretcher door, Maria and Darnell are greeted by a crowd of nurses and techs. The head nurse on duty, who has sandy hair gelled into spikes, multiple earrings, Winnie-the-Pooh scrubs, and the terrifying air of a woman who has seen _absolutely everything,_ walks up to Maria and tucks her gum into the corner of her cheek before speaking.

“I hope the hell you don’t intend to let the Hulk loose inside this hospital, because if you do, I’ll tell you right now, you can take that shit straight back across the bridge to New York.”

“Understood, ma’am,” says Maria. “We don’t intend to let the suspect in the building if we can help it. Can you get the security staff on duty to help us barricade the doors?”

The woman, whose nametag reads ‘Candy’, snorts. “Security staff? Right now that’s a teenager jerking off downstairs into a hot pile of laundry. Naw, me and my girls’ll help you.” The clutch of nurses standing behind her nod to indicate that they will, in fact, do _absolutely anything Candy tells them to, to the fucking letter._

“I like you already,” Darnell says to Candy, an awed tone in his voice, and Maria only elbows him in the ribs a **little** as they head down the back stairs, with their army of nurses, to keep an enchantress with a van from stealing a brain for an ensorcelled Hulk. She feels pretty good about it.

 

 

 

 

As Steve screeches into the ambulance bay, coming to a lurching stop because he still hasn’t trained himself out of pumping the brakes on modern vehicles, Natasha squints out the windshield at the sliding glass doors of the emergency room.

“Are those… cafeteria tables?” she says.

“Identify yourselves!” shrieks a voice through a loudspeaker from behind one of the folding tables that has indeed been propped inside the doors to create a makeshift barrier. Steve steps out of the ambulance, slowly, as Natasha and Thor clamber out the other side.

“I’m Captain Rogers. We’re here to help.”

There’s a brief pause and what sounds like a whispered argument through the loudspeaker, and then a new voice comes on the loudspeaker: “Okay, that’s cool then, you can come on in.”

As the doors to the hospital swing open, two sheepish-looking nurses stand up from behind their makeshift barricade. The one currently clutching the loudspeaker is wearing Despicable Me scrubs. The other, blushing fiercely, is wearing scrubs with little cartoons of Steve and his shield all over them. Natasha looks at the scrubs, then pointedly at Steve, who turns even more scarlet than the nurse.

“Who’s in charge here?” he asks, in a transparent effort to find familiar ground.

“That would be me,” says Maria Hill, appearing in the doorway from Radiation. She is flanked by two nurses, who are carrying fire extinguishers, and a SHIELD helicopter pilot, who is carrying an IV stand’s aluminum pole. “Took you guys long enough.”

“Our chauffer is ninety-six,” Natasha says. “Where’s Clint?”

“He’s upstairs in the burn unit,” Maria tells her. “They’re not letting anyone in.”

Natasha looks at Maria.

“They’re asking very politely that nobody come in while they’re working on him,” Maria revises.

Natasha nods. “Where’s Amora?” she asks.

“That’s what we don’t know,” says Maria. “Last we heard she was coming this way in her invisible van.”

“Her what now?” says Steve.

“Invisible van,” says the SHIELD pilot. “Like Wonder Woman’s invisible jet?”

“Wait, now there’s two of them running around?” Steve says.

“Nevermind,” Natasha tells him. “Where do you need us?”

“The back of the hospital, where all the clinics are. It’s like a mini-mall back there, nothing but service entrances, it’s a nightmare to contain. Take Rainbow Brite and Optimus Prime with you,” Maria says, indicating the two nurses she came in with by their respective cartoon-emblazoned scrubs. “All the other nurses are helping with evac, but we grabbed them to help you move beds, maybe block some of the doors.”

“That will not be necessary,” Thor says, holding one hand out.

“Why not?” Maria says.

“She is already in the building,” Thor says, his ear cocked and an expression on his face like a hunting dog catching a scent. He flips the hammer several times in his hand, getting a good grip on it. “Mjolnir can sense her.”

Natasha sneaks a glance at Maria, whose expression is resolutely wooden.

“What floor is she on?” the SHIELD helicopter pilot says, and Thor puts a finger to his lips, shakes his head. Everyone tries not to breathe or move while Thor communes silently with his hammer, listening to magical vibrations that only he can sense. The emergency room is silent as a submarine slipping under radar… or is until Tony Stark comes screeching into the emergency room in a searing crash of metal and shattering glass, repulsors raised and shoulders bristling with guns. When he sees the assembled group, the guns fold away and the face plate pops up.

“Oh, hey guys, how’s it going?”

“A, there’s a fucking door, B, why aren’t you in the Hulkbuster right now?” Maria begins before being interrupted by a loud crash from directly below the emergency room. Thor raises a finger. “That was Amora.”

For the first time in Natasha’s entire career at SHIELD, she gets to see what panic looks like on Maria Hill. “Where is she?”

Rainbow Brite pipes up: “The morgue’s underneath us.”

“But she’s magical!” Maria hisses. “What are we supposed to do?”

“I’ve always found shooting something multiple times tends to work, magic or no,” Stark says.

Thor grimaces. “Unfortunately, in order to shoot her, you would need to be looking at her, and Amora is most powerful when she enters through the gaze.”

“Question,” Natasha says, because she can recognize a briefing when she hears one. “If we’re not making direct eye contact with her, is she still dangerous?”

Thor looks puzzled. “Eye contact?”

Thankfully, Natasha can also recognize a language barrier when she encounters one. “This,” she says, looking Thor right in the eye. “This is eye contact. This,” she says, looking pointedly at his shoulder, “Is not.”

“Neither is what Optimus Prime is aiming at your backside, big fella,” Tony helpfully adds.

“Ah!” Thor says, brightening considerably. “No, she cannot enter your mind without ‘eye contact’.” As he pronounces the new and unfamiliar phrase, he raises his hands and, still holding Mjolnir, makes bunny ears—a gesture Clint thought it would be funny to teach him. At the time, Natasha thought it was hilarious. Right now, it just makes her throat ache.

“Right,” Maria says briskly, relieving Natasha of the spotlight. “So, everyone, don’t look her in the eye. You,” she says to the nurse in Rainbow Brite scrubs, “How long is it going to take the rest of your team to finish evacuating the building?”

“About ten more minutes, ma’am. We’ve rehearsed a lot since September 11th.”

“Good. Thor, is there anything else you think we oughta know?”

Thor nods. “If she aims her staff at you, seek refuge. Amora is powerful, but she is not a mighty thinker. If we can reach her before she enchants Banner to fight for her, we will capture her.”

“All right then,” Tony says. “Magic staff, try and keep clear. Got it. Lead the way.”

They creep down the stairwell, the nurses doing a surprisingly decent job of covering their corners with the fire extinguishers. Natasha will never stop being amazed at the average American’s level of preparation for urban combat—the nurses, without being

told, are checking their quadrants. One of the few perks of working with First World civilians: they’ve all played Call of Duty so much that raid formations come to them naturally. Unfortunately, they’re also jumpy and reactive, so when they stumble upon a teenager who is, to all appearances, jerking off into a laundry hamper, both nurses shriek and blast him with fire extinguisher powder, slowing progress considerably. Natasha shoots Maria an impatient glance and Maria nods a go-ahead—with great relief, Natasha leaves the rest of the party behind and darts through the rabbit’s warren of hallways below the hospital, looking for traces of Amora and her prisoner.

 

She glides forward carefully, low to the floor, so as not to round a corner and come eye-to-eye with an enchantress. There are only so many doorways big enough to fit a Hulk through—janitorial closets and offices are right out, as is pretty much anything with a standard doorframe. She peeks in the cooler, in morgue anterooms, all the places that hospitals stash bodies when they’re overloaded and waiting for the funeral drivers to arrive: all are empty and quiet. Then, a shattering crash from an MRI lab three doors behind her; Natasha flattens herself against the wall and backtracks quickly, peeking in the window. Amora is rummaging through drawers and cabinets one-handed, apparently not finding what she’s looking for, as she chucks fistfuls of tubing and vials and bandages on the floor all around her. Then Amora turns around and Natasha’s heart rate triples as she sees what Amora’s got clutched in her other hand—wet, grey and dripping.

 

 

The hospital’s “security staff” has just been dealt with when Natasha comes skidding around the corner, nearly slamming into Maria. She’s panting and white, and Stark raises his gauntlets near-automatically to get whatever’s coming after her.

“Amora’s got a brain out,” Natasha says. “She’s got a brain out already and I can’t tell if it’s Bruce’s.”

The whole party starts to run, full-tilt, Maria yanking extra clips of ammunition out of her jumpsuit as she runs and passing them to Natasha, who’s out front when they come around the corner and encounter Amora, who’s standing in the middle of the hallway, brain in one hand, staff in the other, gore sliding down her robes and puddling on the floor. In unison, the entire group twists and flinches away, hands flying up to protect their eyes, as though Amora is a blinding sun or a nude relative.

“Kee-RIST!” Darnell yelps. “PUT THE BRAIN DOWN, lady!” He is joined by a chorus of “You are under arrest!”s and “Step slowly away from the brain!”s and one “Amora, abandon this foul pursuit!”

At this, Amora snarls and aims a jet of green light from her staff at Mjolnir; the light hits the hammer with a deafening gong, which ripples visibly through the air and leaves everyone bent over and clutching their ears, except Stark, who has his helmet on and keeps firing shots at Amora as she turns her back and flounces around the corner in a whirl of green robes. As soon as she’s gone, Stark pops his faceplate up. “OK, _fuck_ people who do that to physics,” he says. “Light shouldn’t be that loud. And by the way, you can all relax. That’s not Banner’s brain. Or Hulk’s. Uh. Assuming they’re different. Either way, relax.”

“What?” Maria says, struggling to her feet. “How the fuck do you know that, Stark?”

“I had JARVIS scan it,” Stark says. “He scans mine daily, it’s no sweat off his balls, robotically speaking. That brain’s been dead three days at least, and unless Brucey had late-stage Alzheimer’s and somehow none of us noticed? Not his.” He sniffs. “Not that that’s gonna stop me from putting an enchantress-shaped hole through a wall. Who’s with me?”

“Let’s go get her,” Steve says, his face grim. “I don’t care how old that brain is, it deserves a decent burial.”

“Aye,” says Thor.

“Wait,” says one of the nurses. “This basement is a big rectangular loop. You all chase her in one direction, we’ll just be going in circles. We have to split up.”

“Rainbow Brite’s right,” says Stark. “OK, take Maria and Natasha with you, and hey, just for good measure, take a Captain America. I call dibs on Thor, cause you can never have too much Norse god on your side, am I right? Flyboy, Optimus Prime, you coming with us or going with them?”

“Them,” says Darnell, pointing to Maria.

The nurse in Optimus Prime scrubs says, “You.” The grin he’s aiming at Thor is unabashedly flirtatious. Thor returns the smile with good grace—Maria guesses Thor must get that a lot.

“Alrighty, fair split,” Stark says, walking backwards. “C’mon, Prime, you any good with that fire extinguisher?”

“Jefe, I can put out any fire you want,” says the nurse, hefting the extinguisher as they head down the hall, and Stark’s reaction bark of laughter is lost as they round the corner. Maria turns to Natasha. “Okay, now that the bro coalition is gone, how do you want to play this?”

Natasha assesses her team. Maria Hill, a SHIELD pilot who knew enough to choose Maria Hill, Cap, and a nurse wearing Rainbow Brite scrubs. “We don’t try to take down Amora,” she says. “We find Bruce and get him out of here.”

“Wait, we’re going after _the Hulk?”_ squeaks the nurse.

“You don’t like it, there’s the door,” Maria says, her eyes not leaving Natasha’s. “I like it. We take away her prisoner, we take away one more weapon she could use against us.”

“And one more reason for her to fight,” Natasha says. “She’s got him stashed around here somewhere. We find him, we convince him to come with us, we get him out of here _quietly_.”

“Question,” the SHIELD pilot says. “How do you shush the Hulk?”

“He can be quiet when he’s calm,” Natasha says. “And he recognizes friends. So you let me go in first when we find him. You keep a lookout and I’ll let you know when it’s safe to come in.”

“I have a question too,” says Rainbow Brite, and Maria gives her a _you are **this** close, woman _ look.

Rainbow Brite holds up a Sharpie. “Does he ever sign autographs?”

 

 

 

 

The helicopter ride from Westchester to the Meadowlands Hospital takes no time at all, and Phil’s hopping out on the roof before he even has time to consult any of the SHIELD medical databases for information on Extremis-based burns. Well, that and Jemma keeps snatching the tablet out of his hands and saying things like, “Stop Googling that!” and “You’ll drive yourself mad!” and “Oh my God, are you actually consulting WebMD? You are aware I have an actual doctorate and I am telling you not to read this?!”

“You haven’t actually finished the MD yet,” Phil tells her, just to watch her make that prune-face Jemma makes when someone points out a degree she has not yet attained.

“Just for that, I’m taking your tablet away for good,” she informs him, and then the chopper’s touching down, and Phil’s yanking open the door on the top deck of the hospital, and someone in Winnie the Pooh scrubs is saying “You’re Phil Coulson” and “Your boss called to tell me you were coming” and “Come on, I’ll take you to him.”

And Phil lets himself be lead to a small waiting room where Winnie the Pooh scrubs points to a chair and says, “There. That’s where you wait. His surgeons will come through that door when they’re done to tell you how it’s gone.” And leaves him there.

Phil sits there, alone, hands fidgeting idly at his knees. He wishes someone would tell him what he’s supposed to do. This has never been a problem for Phil before.

 

 

 

 

Rainbow Brite ends up being the one who spots the Hulk.

“Uh, guys?” she says, crouching outside a CT lab with two big double doors. The doors have round porthole windows in them, and she rises up to peek in the left-hand one. “I think this is him maybe?”

“Is he huge and green?” says Maria, her eyebrows raised nearly off her forehead.

“Uh… yeah?” says the nurse.

“Then it’s probably him,” Maria says, dry as anything. She looks back over her shoulder at Natasha. “Ready to go in?”

Natasha nods. “Here,” she says to Maria, unholstering her gun. “Take this.”

“What, are you nuts?” Maria hisses, and Natasha looks at her with revulsion.

“He’s _on my team_ ,” she says, before setting the gun in Maria’s hands and walking through the swinging double doors.

“Huh,” says Maria quietly to Darnell, who is crouching right next to her.

“Huh what?” says Darnell.

Maria turns her head so her lips are just barely brushing the shell of Darnell’s ear, a fact they both pretend not to notice. “She’s got a thing for him. I wasn’t sure before, but now I am.”

“You mean… for the Hulk?” Darnell says, his voice barely a squeak, and Maria elbows him in the ribs.

“Not for _the Hulk_ ,” she says, when she’s sure the nurse isn’t listening in. “For Banner.”

Darnell looks at Maria.

“Okay, for the Hulk insofar as he’s also Banner,” Maria revises.

“Thank you,” Darnell says, “That makes me feel much better.”

“What, I think it’s sweet,” Maria says. Feeling Darnell’s eyes on her, she says, “Yes, I did just say something was sweet. Tell anyone at SHIELD and I’ll rip your kidneys out.”

“Don’t worry,” says Darnell, and now it’s Maria’s turn to act like she doesn’t notice his lips ghosting her ear, his hand skimming around her back to rest at her waist. “I won’t tell.”

 

 

Natasha enters the CT lab slowly and carefully, stopping immediately inside the doors and letting her hands dangle to her sides. The Hulk, not so much dressed as decorated with a hospital gown, is sitting on a massive stainless steel countertop. He is twiddling his thumbs. Natasha smiles.

“Hello there,” she says, noting out of the corner of her eye the absolutely terrified candy striper who is crouched on the opposite side of the CT scanner from the Hulk, pressed up against the wall, her face white and her hand locked over her own mouth.

The Hulk appears not to notice Natasha’s greeting—his gaze is distracted, flighty, like he’s watching invisible motes of dust in the air. Natasha takes another step towards him, signaling the candy striper with her left hand to _wait still, just a second, hold tight_.

“Hey there, big guy,” she says. “Remember me?”

Still no reaction. Natasha takes another step closer, looking for traces of blood or brain injury. There are none—the Hulk just continues to stare off into space like a vacant child. Natasha waves her hand in front of his eyes and, when he doesn’t even track the movement, decides he’s non-reactive enough to make civilian evacuation possible. Without taking her eyes off the Hulk, she snaps her fingers until the candy striper looks up. Natasha points firmly to the door, and the girl makes a mad dash for it, already crying hysterically as she hits the swinging double doors, leaving Natasha alone in the room with the Hulk. She crosses her arms. “Hey,” she says sternly. “Snap out of it.”

No response. She didn’t really expect one. If the Hulk were a cartoon right now, there would be little hypnotic spirals spinning in his eyes. Natasha takes another step forward, considering. Unfortunately, there are only two ways she knows to snap someone out of a hypnotic trance. One of them depends on you being the person who put them into it, and usually involves a prearranged password or sound of some type. The second one worked on Clint, but she doesn’t much relish the idea of trying to hit the Hulk really hard in the head.

“So, let’s play Guess Amora’s Password,” Natasha whispers to herself. First, she tries snapping her fingers, which is sort of the hypnotic equivalent of guessing that your mark secured their computer with the password “PASSWORD”. No dice. Next, she tries a few other obvious tactics: counting backwards from three, variations on “wake up”, and—cautiously—clapping her hands, wincing as the sharp sound echoes around the room. Nothing seems to reach the Hulk in his bubble of oblivion. Natasha frowns. Although surprisingly thorough on subjects like palmistry, prophecy and astrology, the Red Room had somehow failed to anticipate Asgardian landings, and Natasha is surprised to find her education lacking on the subject of divine Norse magic.

“Hocus pocus?” she guesses. “Abracadabra?”

The Hulk sways gently. Natasha is now very close, her hands almost touching the Hulk’s where they rest on his knees. This close, she can notice things she’s never been at leisure to notice under battle conditions. For example, the sound of his breath, like a sleeping dragon or a slowly operated bellows—every chuff ruffles her hair slightly, even though the Hulk is at ease and is breathing shallowly. He smells the same as Banner—green, like wet tea leaves and fresh grass. Natasha looks up at him, at the terrible vacancy in his eyes, and wishes he would get mad, light up the way he does when wading into battle. Even that fearsome heat would warm her more than this imbecilic, childlike daze, this… simulacrum of a person. And, just like that, the answer comes to her. It’s Facebook. It’s got to be. Amora lives her entire life on there, the password must be from there too.

“ _Like_ ,” Natasha whispers to the Hulk, hope catching in her throat, as she reaches out and touches him, her fingertips skating up his arm to brush his chest, right over his heart. For a moment she thinks she sees a glimmer of him—and then the moment is gone, and she feels disappointment engulf her as he continues to stare off at some unspecified point in the middle distance. “Goddamnit,” Natasha mutters, pissed at herself as much as Amora for this unfamiliar, treacherous disappointment that’s threatening to swamp her whole, and she peevishly flicks the Hulk with her index finger. “Hey! I’m talking to you,” she says, and when that doesn’t get a response she pokes him—hard—and suddenly a roar fills the air, and Natasha is slithering to the floor as the Hulk rockets to his feet, bellowing, angry, **_present_**. He’s too loud, too angry, too much to manage, and Natasha’s so happy to see him that she can’t even see his face through the tears.

 

 

Maria comes busting in the double doors, weapon drawn, hissing, “What the fuck did you **_do!?”_**

Natasha is laughing as she wipes her eyes. “I poked him!!!”

“Well fucking **_unpoke_** him!” Maria says, “He’s gonna get Amora in here!”

Natasha, thinking fast, reaches up to touch the Hulk’s face. “Easy there, big guy,” she says. “It’s me, Natasha. Remember me? You like to fight with me, like on my team? Team? You know, Avengers?”

Hulk, shifting his weight like a boxer, growls at Maria.

“Yes, I know, Maria had a gun, but you scared her, and now she’s putting it away, see?” Natasha says, shooting a poisonous glance at Maria, who holsters her weapon (the safety never taken off) while aiming a smug look over her shoulder at Darnell, who is standing right inside the swinging doors with the stunned expression common to people seeing the Hulk in person for the first time. The Hulk takes a long, appraising look at Darnell, then grunts inquisitively.

“Him?” Natasha says. “Specialist Weeks is a friend. Wanna say hi?”

Darnell visibly wills himself to remain calm. “Uh… sup?”

The Hulk grunts, then looks back to Natasha, all interest apparently lost in Darnell.

“That’s about as friendly as he gets,” says Natasha, keeping eye contact with the Hulk as she pets him soothingly on the shoulder. “You should be very flattered.”

“Oh, I am,” Darnell says. “Can we please get out of here now?”

“I think so,” Natasha tells him. “Want to get out of here?” she asks the Hulk, who nods so violently he knocks a ceiling panel off its bracing.

“Alright,” Natasha says, “Walk with me?”, and that’s when they hear loud shouts, repulsor blasts, and Rainbow Brite squeaking in an increasingly hysterical tone, “No, no, NO! Get away!!!”

And as the Hulk pushes Natasha behind himself and barrels out the double doors to confront Amora, the hallway fills with a fine white mist; Natasha, Darnell, and Maria come out the doors with weapons and IV poles readied, but visibility is nil and they can’t see a thing beyond arms’ reach.

“Amora! Put your hands up and get on the floor!” Maria barks, whirling in all directions.

“Hill! Where are you?” Cap’s voice comes through the mist from several yards away, and then there’s a loud, skull-like **_clonk_** , and a voice yelling, “I got her!” As Natasha heads in the direction of the voice, she sees a triumphant-looking nurse in Optimus Prime scrubs, standing over a knocked-out Amora, holding a very large fire extinguisher. Stark appears out of the mist, looking down at Amora’s prone form.

“Nice headshot, buddy,” he tells the nurse, thumping him on the shoulder.

“You hit her in the back of the head with a fire extinguisher?” Steve says, a faint note of squeamishness entering his voice.

“What, she was an organ thief,” says Optimus Prime, to general approbation.

“That’s all well and good, but this magical mist we’re standing in makes vans and people disappear,” Darnell says.

“No it doesn’t!” says a small voice from behind Natasha, and as Maria begins to rip into Rainbow Brite with an “Excuse me, but it _does_ , I’ve _seen it,”_ the nurse holds up her own extinguisher.

“No, I mean, I’m sure Amora’s magical mist is very potent, but this isn’t magic. I sprayed the fire extinguisher at her. This is just suppressant powder.”

The group looks around. Indeed, the mist is already getting thinner near the ceiling, settling in little drifts on people’s heads and shoulders. Tony reaches out and swipes a finger through the white powder on Hulk’s shoulder.

“You look a coffee table in the eighties,” he informs the Hulk.

Elbowing Tony gently out of the way, Thor kneels down next to Amora, gingerly working a scrap of torn sheet under her face and blindfolding her before flipping her over. He looks up at Rainbow Brite, his face grim. “It was a good strategy,” he tells her. “To blind her so she could not enchant you.”

“You shot her in the face with a fire extinguisher?” Steve asks Rainbow Brite, but this time, his tone is awed.

“Uh, yeah,” the nurse says, wiping her hand on her scrubs as she stands.

“Thor, I think we’d all like to get washed up and go see how Clint is doing,” Natasha says over Steve Rogers attempting to introduce himself to a nurse who is attempting to ask him for an autograph. “Do you have this?”

“Aye,” says Thor, setting Mjolnir on Amora’s ribcage and beginning some complicated Asgardian handwaving over her. “I will ask Heimdall to send the Lady Sif to escort her to prison.”

“Great, Asgardian Ghostbusters,” Tony says. “Optimus Prime, wanna take us up to the burn unit?”

“Sure. I think I can find you a room where you won’t be bothered while you wait.”

“Good man,” Tony says. “Lead the way.”

The nurse hoists his extinguisher up at a jaunty angle and heads toward the back of the hospital, saying, “I think we gotta freight elevator somewhere back here we can fit the big guy.”

“Goodie, another elevator,” Natasha grumbles.

“You went in an _elevator_?” Maria asks her. _“In a combat situation?”_

Natasha flinches ever so slightly. “It was unavoidable.”

Maria whistles. “How you gonna explain _that_ on the report to Coulson?”

“I wasn’t planning on bringing it up.”

“Why, what’s the matter with elevators?” Steve says just as the doors close on them.

 

 

 

 

Outside the burn unit, the head nurse in charge, a flinty-eyed woman named Candy, takes one look at the reassembled Avengers and shakes her head: “Nope, no, no way. I was willing to let the suit wait because he’s clearly family—” behind her, Phil waves from a plastic chair—“but y’all are not gonna turn my hallway into a three-ring media circus. I treated Lindsay Lohan once, I am never letting that shit happen on my shift again.”

“No one from the media knows we’re here,” Steve starts, and the nurse cuts him off:

“Bullshit. The only person they follow around more’n you is HIM,” and here she points to Stark, who shrugs in agreement.

“We have several injuries ourselves,” Steve points out evenly, his eyebrow hiked towards his hairline. “Not that we’re asking your staff to bother. We can field dress them. We just need a place to work.”

Candy’s face softens somewhat. “I’ll find some rooms. And I’ll send some nurses to help. Gabriel, Traci, find me some beds.” Reluctantly, Optimus Prime and Rainbow Brite follow Candy back towards the nurses’ station.

Steve turns back to the group. “Are all nurses terrifying in the future?”

“Yes,” Natasha tells him, and goes to sit next to Phil. He turns to embrace her and they cling tightly to each other for a long moment as the other Avengers politely shuffle around to give them a bit of privacy.

Maria clears her throat. “I’ll call for three or four SHIELD vehicles to come pull up to the back entrance, make it look like you’re leaving to any reporters. You all okay here, do you need anything?”

“No, thank you,” Steve tells her. “We’ll be fine here until we know how Clint is.”

Hulk grunts in agreement and sits down on the floor with a _whumpf_ , letting out a heavy sigh.

“Just call when you need a ride back to the Tower,” Maria says, giving Phil a meaningful look, and leaves with Darnell in tow; Stark pulls Steve away to find some coffee.

“How you holding up?” Natasha murmurs to Phil, who looks down at his hands.

“I’m not really sure,” he says.

“We would never have been able to get him out of there as fast without you,” she tells him.

“Pepper was who really helped,” he says. “She broke through two glass doors in Stark’s lab to get to the Hulkbuster prototype.”

“Bet he’ll be thrilled.”

Phil shrugs. “She said it’s nothing Stark doesn’t do himself on a daily basis.”

“True,” says Natasha. “Why are we all living with him again?”

“Convenient access to downtown SHIELD offices, high-quality secure internet with DARPA access, on-site parking and free coffee,” Phil says, like he’s reciting from the real estate pamphlet.

“You mean your boyfriend made you,” Natasha says.

“My boyfriend made me,” Phil agrees, then winces elaborately, like the sentence has hit a nerve in a back molar. Natasha gathers he’s never actually referred to Clint as his boyfriend _out loud_ before. She pats his arm comfortingly.

“I’m going to go find you some coffee,” she decides, and just then there’s an ear-popping _whoosh_ of sound and the air around them equalizes as the Hulk disappears, replaced by a surprised-looking Bruce Banner.

Natasha’s eyebrows rise. “And some pants.”

 

 

 

 

In the stairwell, Maria is feeling the effects of the day; her pace is flagging as she makes her way to the roof, and at the landing between the fourth and fifth floors, she decides to take a little break to reconsider her life choices. Darnell, pulling up alongside her, is even more winded than she; he puts his hands on his knees and wheezes, head-down, for a while.

“It’s the cigarettes,” she informs him.

“I know. My sister’s using Chantix, I might try that next.”

“You gotta replace the addiction,” she tells him, leaning against one of the hand railings.

“Yeah? What’d you use?”

“Gummi worms.”

Darnell snorts, and she presses on: “Four one-pound bags a week at first until my doctor told me I was about to develop diabetes.” They’re both giggling now, and Maria puts her hand on Darnell’s shoulder. “You have to replace the hand to mouth,” she tells him, and the laughter vanishes from her voice as he straightens up and looks at her, seriously, his eyes dropping to her mouth and then further down, to where a blush is slowly staining her skin. He steps in closer, reaches up and tucks a few strands of her hair behind her ear.

“You know,” he says conversationally, his eyes skating over her forehead, then down her hairline to the spot where his fingers are lingering, “Being as you’re Assistant Director of SHIELD, it probably behooves me to ask if I’m gonna get fired if I kiss you right now.”

“Are you kidding me?” says Maria. “How about this: you won’t get fired if you do, but I’ll fucking shoot you if you don’t.”

“That’s what I thought,” says Darnell, and leans in to press his lips to hers, feathery at first, then deeper as Maria brings her hands up to cup the back of his skull, tilting him until she finds an angle that pleases her. When she gets it, she makes a hungry little sound and promptly comes off the railing, tightening her grip and walking Darnell backwards until his back hits a wall and she can press up into him like a long, sinuous cat, twining one leg around him and pinning him with her hips. When they finally break apart, they are both panting, and Darnell’s pupils are blown wide.

“Shit,” he says. “Tell me we get to do more of that.”

“Does your helicopter have a backseat?” says Maria.

 

 

Five hours later, when Rainbow Brite comes into the small room where the Avengers have been waiting, Coulson has fallen asleep on Natasha’s shoulder, Thor is snoring on an undersized couch that fits only half his torso, and Captain America and Tony are both asleep in hospital chairs, heads lolling and drool evident. Bruce is asleep in the hospital bed—Candy herself put him there, threatening to sedate him if he didn’t allow her to tend to his scrapes and burns. (He was out five minutes after she started dabbing at him with the Bacitracin.) Only Natasha is awake, watching Rainbow Brite with eyes as cool and steady as a cat’s. Apparently reading what she wants on the nurse’s face, she turns gently and nudges Coulson awake. “Hey. C’mon. Time to wake up.”

Once Coulson is out in the hallway, closing the door to the Avengers’ room quietly behind himself, the nurse tells him: “He’s okay. We’re sorry it took us so long to come and get you, but he took the anaesthesia a little heavier than we anticipated and he’s still pretty groggy.”

“Groggy’s pretty much his baseline,” Coulson reassures her, and she smiles.

“He’s going to need to be in for another few days. The burns on his shoulderblades were the worst. We put a graft on while he was out, but he’s going to need at least one, maybe two more.”

“Is he stable enough to be transferred to a SHIELD facility?”

“Yes, assuming you have the resources necessary to manage the risk of infection.”

“Oh we do, trust me.”

“Hmm. Wasn’t that SHIELD who handled the Midtown cleanup?”

“We learned a lot.”

“Okay then,” says the nurse, and butts open the door to the recovery room.

 

 

“Hawkeye,” says Phil gently, and Clint comes back to himself face-down and disoriented. He can hear Phil but he can’t see him, and he can’t tell what time it is because he’s facing down, lying in some kinda weird table like massage people use.

‘Mnnnggh,” he says, and Phil’s face appears below him. Phil’s in a suit, crouching, and his tie’s come loose from its clip. He looks exhausted.

“Hey, babe,” he says very quietly up to Clint. “They got you pretty drugged up, so I wouldn’t blame you if you don’t get any of this, but you’re in the burn unit of Meadowlands Hospital. They’ve got you lying on your front so your back can heal. You’ve got a tube in so you can just go ahead and pee if you feel like it.”

“Urrrgh,” says Clint. Not because he couldn’t be more eloquent; he could totally be eloquent if he wanted to. “Urrrgh” just seems like the appropriate response to that. Phil looks shattered, and fond, and like he’s maybe been sleeping sitting up, and Clint wishes Phil could get more sleep, and then the drugs tug him underneath the surface again, and he’s out.

 

 

 

 

The drive back to Stark Tower, in the back of a SHIELD-owned white stretch limousine with a door stencil that that reads “Tenefly Prom Night And Bachelor Party Rentals”, is quiet. Phil is reminded of nothing so much as the pickup of seven-year olds the morning after a sleepover; the Avengers are sleepy and sulky when disturbed, and shuffle down to the ambulance loading bay clutching pillows that Phil supposes they’ll just have to messenger back to the hospital. When Stark sees the fake rental limo he looks briefly like he’s going to start something, draws breath to complain, then visibly gives up and gets in.

Phil climbs in last of all, looking up to see the silhouette of the SHIELD medical helicopter rising above them, taking Clint to the med facility in Brooklyn. Jemma Simmons is onboard, because Phil will be damned if he’s putting Clint on any kind of SHIELD transport without a trusted ally today. He’s already made the limo driver show him four forms of identification and answer several intrusive personal questions.

 

 

Now, gliding through Manhattan in the few dark hours before dawn, Phil finds he can’t sleep at all, a problem not shared by the rest of the limo’s passengers. Stark is sleeping in the suit, head doing the loll-and-jerk routine, occasionally muttering something about transistors, or possibly resistance. Steve and Thor are snoozing against each other, a sight Phil suspects he might find more interesting if he weren’t exhausted. 

Bruce and Natasha are sharing the back bench, and it’s not like they’re doing anything particularly obvious—no one’s got their head in anyone’s lap, no one fell asleep holding hands or anything—but Phil can tell something’s nascent between these two. Clint’s been grumping about it for weeks, but Phil hadn’t actually seen it himself until just now. It’s possible even Bruce and Natasha aren’t fully aware of it yet. It’s in the way they’re both sleeping, knocked out, lax and unattractive as NyQuil ads. Phil has never seen Natasha this relaxed, including when she’s been sedated for minor field surgery—on drugs, Natasha simply becomes very, very still. But, sharing a bench seat with Bruce Banner, Natasha’s head is back, her hands loose and open, her weight joggling and shifting with the movement of the limo. She’s actually _drooling_ , Phil realizes. And Bruce is sprawled like a Great Dane over three-quarters of the seat, his glasses riding up on his forehead, his palm smooshed against his face. They are both going to have the worst hair imaginable when they wake up. And, as the limo glides into the garage of Stark Tower, Phil finds himself gripped by an overwhelming wave of fondness for them both; in fact, for all this motley assortment of outliers he’s somehow managed to get himself assigned to. His fondness even includes _Stark_ , which is how Phil knows he’s getting punchy from lack of sleep. Thank God for JARVIS, who automatically takes Phil to his floor when Phil fails to press an elevator button, then helpfully runs a retinal scan and opens the apartment door for Phil when he stands there blinking stupidly at it for several seconds. Phil steps into the apartment and wonders whether it’s technically still the same day that he and Clint left it. He stands there, trying to figure it, for so long that JARVIS prompts him:

“Agent Coulson, I have adjusted the room to your preferred temperature, and I will make sure you are alerted if any urgent calls come in.”

“Thanks,” Phil says, heading towards the bedroom as he undoes his tie. “Oh, and JARVIS?”

“Yes?”

“Put the room at Clint’s preferred temperature, please.”

“As you wish, sir.”

It’s too warm, by a lot, but Clint spent most of his childhood cold and has spent all of his adulthood compensating for it, and now Phil can’t sleep unless he’s broiling. He crawls into the tangle of down and thermal fiber that Clint has made their bed into, and falls into a restless sleep.

 

 

 

Eleven Months Later

 

“It’s like you’re my mirror—”

“Wo-oah.”

“My mirror staring back at me.”

“Wo-oah.”

“I couldn’t get any bigger—“

“Wo-oah.”

“With anyone else beside-ah me—“

Phil spits a mouthful of toothpaste before coming in on, “And now it’s clear as this moment—”

“Promise, babe.”

“That we’re making, two reflections into one—”

“I am _so horrified_ by you both right now,” says Natasha, leaning against the bathroom doorjamb, and Clint shoots her a wink in the mirror without breaking harmony with Phil or pausing his shave. He’s got a towel wrapped around his waist, and his back is one unbroken terrain map of scar tissue and skin grafts, but his body language is loose and easy as he rinses foam off the blade underneath the running water.

“Whatever, you’re just jealous of my Justin voice,” he tells her, and now it’s Phil’s turn to make brief, amused eye contact with Natasha in the mirror.

“Stark wants you both in the living room in ten,” she tells them. The reason she came down here. Well. Half the reason. The other half is the alert system she’s set up with JARVIS to let the entire team know whenever Phil and Clint have one of their morning karaoke sessions. Videoconferencing is involved.

“Stark?” says Phil, frowning. It’s usually Cap who calls the meetings.

“Yeah, apparently it’s regarding Cap’s birthday party. He wants it to be a surprise.”

“It’s the _fourth of July_ ,” Phil points out, ignoring Clint’s reflexive, disgusted snort. “How could it possibly be a surprise?”

“Stark wants to call a fake Assemble aler—”

“No,” Phil says calmly, rinsing off his toothbrush.

“He says Fury doesn’t have to—”

“Still no.”

“Killjoy,” she tells him, turning to leave.

“Yup,” says Phil, unbothered, reaching for the Listerine. “We’ll be up in ten.”

“Make it fifteen,” Clint hollers after her. “I need to wax.”

“Do you even know what that means?” Phil asks, and as the doors swings shut behind her Natasha hears Clint assuring Phil that he knows _all_ the secrets of the sisterhood.

 

She cannot believe these are her friends.

 

 

 

 

“Friends, Avengers, countrymen,” Stark says to the assembled group, minus Steve, in the living room. (Steve has been sent to Brooklyn to buy artisanal bacon/have a minor nervous breakdown/get over his fear of hipsters because the “Captain America Wants You… To Get Off His Lawn” meme is gaining traction and SHIELD PR keeps a close eye on that kind of shit.) “We have a party to plan. I had no idea when I invited all you people into my house that there would be so few birthdays per capita, so thanks to all you fucking creepy spy people whose birthdays are redacted—” here, Clint, Phil, and Natasha all nod in silent unison—“And all you assholes from other planets where birthdays apparently aren’t a thing—” Thor raises a hand and grins good-naturedly—“I have to funnel all my party-throwing energy into, like, three birthdays a year.”

“And Christmas,” Phil points out mildly.

“And New Year’s,” says Clint.

“There’s the annual Stark gala,” says Bruce.

“And the annual Stark _Industries_ gala,” says Natasha, who is sitting on the couch with Bruce’s arm around her shoulders. “They’re _two separate_ parties,” she informs Bruce seriously.

“I have no idea how you survived being his assistant,” Bruce tells her fondly, his fingers gently unwinding one of her ringlets.

“There is Halloween,” Thor says cheerfully. Thor loves Halloween.

“The dual Valentine’s Day and Fuck Valentine’s Day parties.”

“Pi Day.”

“Wednesday dance parties.”

“Smirnoff Ice Week.”

“Fuck Me, I’m A Genius Day.”

“There’s that party you threw when Justin Hammer got caught with that hooker.”

“And the one when he got done up for tax evasion.”

“And the one when his cousin got arrested drunk driving on the Vineyard.”

“I think that was the best one of all,” Clint says dreamily.

“Okay, okay,” Stark says. “So we can all agree we have a high bar to clear.”

Everyone laughs, and the conversation stretches on into the afternoon, and suggestions get floated and shot down and argued over and agreed upon, and by the time Steve gets back with an armful of bacon and an enormous head of steam going about inflation, it’s obvious that something extraordinary has, in fact, taken shape. A team.

 

 

Of course, there are stresses, little fissures and fractures. Steve and Stark bicker for America in the Olympics, and usually it’s fine, but every once in a while someone’s real-boy feelings get hurt and an actual argument happens and then everyone’s life is miserable. (Years later, Natasha will have a moment over this with Gamora, and it will be one of the most surreal of Natasha’s exceedingly surreal life.) Natasha has heard that, when women live together, their cycles match up and then PMS becomes a communal Hell Week. Natasha would love to know what having _just a week_ is like. “I live with six men and a Hulk,” she tells Maria. “And I am telling you, their PMS is twenty-eight days on and two days off before starting all over again.”

“If you don’t like it, you can always bunk at the base in Paramus,” Maria says over burgers. “We’re down to almost 1970s levels of lead. And we’ll be totally asbestos-free in a year, assuming everything moves on schedule.”

“How _is_ that going,” Natasha asks. She’s not talking about the asbestos. No one at SHIELD has been talking about the Paramus asbestos problem for months, actually—they’re all too busy gossiping about the daily appearances of hickeys on Assistant Director Hill’s neck, and Specialist Weeks’s sudden and inexplicable addiction to gummi worms, and that one time that Maria received a text in the cafeteria, turned bright red and promptly walked into a wall.

Maria grins widely in response and snags a fry. “I’ll tell you about my asbestos removal project if you tell me about yours,” she offers.

“What do you want to know,” Natasha says guardedly, because she’s tired of being asked highly personal questions about her boyfriend’s anatomy (by Tony), and if the big guy ever shows up during sex (also Tony), and also if the Hulk ever does (very funny, Tony).

“How’s it going?” Maria asks simply, and Natasha suddenly remembers that Phil calls Maria his “Italian grandma”, which, coming from Phil, is the equivalent of skywriting.

“It’s going well,” she says. Thinks about it for another moment. “Actually, really well,” she says, and the conversation lurches forward, with only the occasional hiccups that happen when two people, equally unused to trusting, attempt to share. Natasha is so buoyed that she goes straight to Bruce’s lab afterwards and grabs him by the collar, tugging him down for a brief, filthy smooch, eyes wide open.

“You’re going to go down on me now,” she tells him, and pulls him into the back storeroom, where there’s a stainless steel table she can sit on. He drops to his knees, and she cards her fingers through his hair as he undoes her jeans. They’ve been doing this a lot lately—it’s the one thing that Bruce can usually manage without triggering an event, and she can keep her fingers on his pulse the whole way through, which makes him feel safer. When they first started this, last July, he had a terrible runner’s watch which beeped shrilly whenever his pulse neared 200 bpm, and he would cringe and stop and apologetically show her to the door and lock it firmly behind her, and he never knew this but she used to stay, listening silently at the door, while he waited for her to leave and then threw these epic fits, cursing himself and God and everyone living and dead, past present and future, kicking trash cans and breaking phones and lamps and monitors. Sometimes he’d work himself into an event—sometimes he’d just break down sobbing. Natasha never let him know she was listening, but she kept coming back, wouldn’t leave him alone, kept putting her hands all over him, giving him the touch he’d craved for years. Saying, “I trust you.” Saying, “You won’t hurt me.” Saying, “Neither will he.” Slowly, he’s started to believe her. The Hulk trusted first; Bruce has followed several cautious steps behind. He still hates to change, but if they slip up and an event occurs, he lets her stay in the room, and the Hulk, who is in some ways a much looser person than Bruce, lets her do whatever she wants. Sometimes they just cuddle and watch TV. Sometimes she wants to wrestle and he tosses her around the room. Sometimes they do the things that Tony wants video of.

“You know,” she says conversationally to Bruce, who by now is nuzzling the soft hollow at the juncture of her thigh and her pussy, “Last time you changed, I got you off clamped between my thighs.”

Bruce stills, in marked contrast to his pulse, which jumps between her left thumb and forefinger. “Are you _trying_ to make this over fast?” he says, in a tone of wounded dignity that Natasha knows from experience is _such a crock of shit_. She smiles, eyes closed, and digs her right hand’s nails into the knotty muscle at the base of his scalp, where he stores a lot of his tension. He lets out a little groan of pleasure, and she uses the moment to shift him a bit to the left, closer to where she wants him.

“Not at all,” she says. “Just giving you—ah! Information.” He’s _nipped_ her, the bastard, and now he’s _laughing_ at her. She opens one eye and glares down at him. He grins up at her, then yanks her bare ass to the edge of the metal tabletop, thumbs her pussy open and _goes to town_ , devouring her ferociously, sucking her clit into his mouth and tugging at it ruthlessly as he slides two long, clever fingers deep inside her, crooking them to pull her almost off the table, hitting the dark, resonant spot inside her that makes her buck and jolt and smash herself hard against his nose. She’s drowning him, her fingers on his pulse are a joke, she’s got her nails dug deep into his scalp and she’s gyrating and shaking and coming apart on his face, and he’s moaning, a deep, guttural, pleasure-noise that she can feel reverberating up through her, like the echo of a train shaking the building. As she pants and trembles, coming down, he grabs her by the ass and thighs and yanks her down to the concrete floor, pinning her against his warm, firm body. He’s dense and hard and pulsing with aliveness, and she gets to kiss Bruce for one long, obscene, ecstatic moment before the transformation happens and it’s not Bruce any more.

 

 

 

Phil hears the Hulk bellowing from eight floors away, which makes JARVIS’s subtle Green Alert—really more of a throat-clearing than anything else—rather redundant.

“I’ll check on it,” Phil says hastily, standing and ignoring Steve’s wounded look. Tony’s been monologuing for thirty minutes about the difference between intranet and internet. At this point, it’s every man for himself. Thor took a rescue text from Jane and disappeared twenty minutes ago, and he wasn’t even raised on Earth. Steve’s just going to have to get less polite if he wants to survive the 21st century. This is what Phil tells himself as he goes for the elevator, pointedly not looking in Steve’s direction. Once he’s safely inside the elevator, he looks up at the camera he may as well use as a focal point for JARVIS.

“Don’t say it,” he warns.

“I wasn’t going to say anything, sir,” JARVIS says. “It is my understanding that ‘Leave no man behind’ is meant to apply only within combat situations.”

“Low blow, buddy.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” says JARVIS, opening the elevator doors to the hallway outside Bruce’s lab. “By all means, investigate the highly suspect Green Alert. Agent Romanov will be delighted to see you.”

Phil, one foot in and one foot out of the elevator, pauses. “Agent Romanov, you said?” He’s been avoiding this particular moment for months now. Not that he’s not happy for them both, he truly is. There are just some things that Phil can think about for exactly one minute before he has to sit down and put his head between his knees.

“Yes. I believe she is coming along right now,” says JARVIS, and before Phil has a chance to flee, Natasha comes around the corner, carrying about five open beers. Her hair is… very messy.

“Coulson,” she says, nodding to Phil as she punches the entry code into the lab door’s keypad, which takes some beer-juggling.

“Agent Romanov,” Phil says. From somewhere in the back of the lab, the Hulk roars. He sounds…. impatient. Natasha winks at Phil (who’s still standing paralyzed at the doors to the elevator), butts open the door to the lab, and disappears inside.

 

Phil steps back into the elevator. A long moment passes before JARVIS closes the doors, and another before JARVIS prompts Phil for a floor.

“Sir, would you like to—”

“Not yet, JARVIS.”

“All right.”

“Just… give me a second.”

“Certainly, sir.”

 

 

 

Clint’s on his final set of reps for the day when Phil comes into the weight room and sits down on one of the benches. He’s looking a little pale, even green, like he’s not getting enough air. Clint rolls up off the bench, ignoring the twinges from the bands of scar tissue across his back, and pads across the floor to stand between Phil’s knees.

“What’s up, babe?” he says, loosening Phil’s tie for him. _Babe._ Clint is getting _awesome_ at the lingo of relationships. Young Clint would be horrified. Now Clint doesn’t care.

“Natasha and the Hulk are…. involved.” Phil says, a little faintly.

“You’re just now getting this? They’ve been going at it for _months_ ,” Clint says, surprised. And people think _Phil’s_ the brains of this relationship.

“No, I knew that,” says Phil, chagrined, “But I mean, not just Natasha and Bruce. Natasha and _the Hulk_.”

Clint chews on that thought and finds he doesn’t much mind the way it swallows. “Good for her,” he finally concludes. “Tasha needs some excitement in her life.”

“What— _excitement_ , we’re talking about _the H—_ ” Phil splutters, and Clint’s heard enough. He puts his fingers under Phil’s chin.

“Babe. Stop. Now, before you say anything dumb ‘bout Tasha, who I remind you was my only family for years before you came along.”

Phil’s mouth snaps shut with a little clipping sound.

“Good. Now, you’ve read our files, so you know how Tasha got her codename. But think about what that name means. Again and again and again she’s taken gangsters, warlords, men who’ve murdered lots of people, into dark rooms, and not one of those men has ever come out. Tasha has killed men with her thighs and her elbows and her bare goddamn hands, so many of ‘em that when she looks at a man, now, all she sees is how easy he’d be to kill. And _Tasha’s_ the one you’re worried about? Don’t you think that, after all that killin’, it might not be a relief for Tasha to get in a room with a man she _can’t_ hurt?”

When Phil is done soundlessly working his mouth open and shut, a whole lot of sounds come out. Sounds like, “I’m an idiot,” and, “I love you,” and “You see everything I don’t.”

“Why they call me Hawkeye, babe,” Clint says, and tilts Phil’s chin up for a kiss.

 

 

It’s not perfect. Nothing ever is. But it’s a family. Phil and Natasha and he are all tied up in it, and it’s bigger than them and yet controlled by them, by the choices that they make every single day. And even when those days are shitty, even when Phil is stressed and Clint is hurting and everyone in the Tower is angry at each other and Nazis are turning up in New Jersey, Clint doesn’t think about leaving any more. None of them do.

 

They are honor bound.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I began work on The Honor System in August of 2013. Now, over a year and a half later, I arrive at the end and find that *I* haven't completed it--*we* have. And by we, I mean the happy band of amazing readers, writers, and friends whom I've discovered through this story and without whose help, support, and encouragement it never would have been finished. Several readers posted every single time I updated; you are collectively the sweet, cold cups of lemonade I used to fuel myself through wall after wall in the marathon of this story. 
> 
> daroos, who is simultaneously posting her seven-hour--SEVEN HOUR!!!--podcast of this story and who has already recorded amazing podcasts of Parts I and II of The Honor System, deserves some sort of a medal for her incredible labor, or possible the naming rights to a street, or a stadium, or perhaps the institution of some sort of national holiday dedicated to the care and feeding of dedicated and amazing recording professionals. She is truly amazing, and the effort she's put into making these incredible podcasts is an honor I do not deserve. Go shower some love on her. 
> 
> Finally, JenTheSweetie. I met this spectacular woman about halfway through Part III of The Honor System, and if I have only one regret about the writing of this fic, it is that I did not meet her sooner, because she has made every single aspect of my writing--and my life--better. I've been in fandom almost eighteen years. If I had to wait another eighteen to meet a partner, editor, and friend as amazing as her, it would still be worth it. Thank you, Sweetie. This story is dedicated to you.

**Author's Note:**

> daroos, as she has for every part of The Honor System, has made an incredible podcast of this, the final part of THS. It is over seven hours long and it is a MASTERPIECE of audio engineering, vocal acting, and singing (you heard me. There is singing.) Truly, she is a triple threat, and I am so proud to be here, with her, at the end of all things. Go check it out: ["Come Back To You One By One"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3490991)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Come Back to You One By One [PODFIC]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3490991) by [daroos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/daroos/pseuds/daroos)




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